Let it Go

The following morning, by an unspoken common consent, they woke early and started riding as the sun rose. Drem and Brac walked with Manueline and Libby, Wals and Illumina rode side by side. The road beyond the forest was broad and the grass trampled either side of it. It looked as though some monstrous slug had crawled over the landscape leaving a trail of noxious slime behind it. There was a pervasive smell of human excrement, rotten food and death. Especially in the two villages, the smell was almost overpowering. Some of them rode along with cloths over their mouth and nose. All conversation ceased. They felt cut-off from each other as though they were riding in a company of ghosts. Each one of them the sole living survivor of a company that rode out of hell only to have to turn around and ride back again.

Daisy and the wolf trotted along well ahead of them, disappearing now and then to investigate some unmentionable artifact hidden under a bush or lost in the grass. Both animals seemed very careful over what they approached but also seemed consumed by curiosity over the strange unearthly landscape through which they passed.

They saw some people. It was not clear if they were local. None of them would come near the company. They seemed especially terrified of the wolf and Daisy. One of them was about to pick up a bow and aim it at the wolf. Manueline called out to them, saying the wolf would kill them if they shot at him. She called out the warning in both the language of the north and the south so it was impossible to say which language they responded to. They carefully put the bow down and backed away, pathetically hiding behind some bushes as though the bush could protect them from all the terrible things that had suddenly come into their world. Manueline realized, a little further down the road, that the people could not have been from the following or they would have known not to aim a bow at the wolf. After they passed the second village towards the middle of the day, they started coming across the tail end of the following; people who were too weak or for some reason unable to keep up with the main group. None of them appealed to the members of the company for help; they just sat by the side of the road and watched the company go past.

Illumina asked Wals, "Why have they come? What are they hoping for?"

"I don't know. It was much the same north of the forest. There seem to be some relationships that survive when people join the following. Children still look for parents and parents for children, but most relationships between adults seem to fall away. I think their ability to use the relationships is what is lost, they no longer seem able to call on someone else for comfort or friendship."

"Is it trust that is lost?"

"No, I don't think so. It is just the inability to act that paralyzes them."

"Wals, it sounds like you're saying they cannot act because they cannot do anything. It doesn't explain anything."

He just smiled and shrugged his shoulders; apologizing, saying he simply did not understand it. Why people would act as these people had was beyond his limited experience; there they were and the evidence of their own eyes was not to be denied.

Wals changed the subject, commenting on Daisy and what an efficient watch she kept. They had just caught a glimpse of her, about a thousand paces ahead of the company, crossing from one side of the road to the other followed by the wolf. Each time they came across some other people, Daisy would come back, attracting Illumina's attention and indicate where the people were. She did this without making a sound and without showing herself to the people outside the company. Daisy understood a wide range of commands mostly delivered by hand signals like 'stay', 'circle left', 'circle right', 'watch behind', 'watch ahead'; this last meaning, 'ignore what you just told me about and watch the road ahead'. She understood the nuances of the context in which the command was given and interpreted them accordingly. She would watch ahead but still not show herself to the people she just reported.

Illumina told him about the sled dog and watchdog training and how some dogs could go through both; how among the Loro, dogs were never allowed to bark. "There is nothing more vulnerable than an adversary who imagines himself undetected. A watch that warns the intruder is almost useless."

Libby and Manueline were riding just ahead of them at the time. Felice and Cosimo were walking. Libby looked back, smiling, "It's a strange experience coming into a Loro village for the first time. None of the dogs bark, they come out and some of them whine and growl perhaps, but no barking."

As the day wore on, they seemed to grow closer together and, in doing so, separate themselves from the scene around them. There was a quiet thread of conversation that ran up and down the line. Mostly the talk concerned the members of the company; where they came from, what they had seen or heard with very little mention of the following or the countryside they rode through.

Towards the end of the day, they came to the hill where they parted from Duilio and Ivo. Illumina sat for a moment on Cavalla looking at it and thinking of what lay beyond it. She smiled grimly and turned to Wals, "I said I would not take that road but I kept coming back to it in my mind and here I am on the edge of it again. I still don't want to take it but I don't think I have any choice. What choice do any of us have in this? Somehow we have to try and resolve it; stop the avalanche before it sweeps away the people of the south as it swept away the people of the north."

Wals shifted uncomfortably, feeling he was the pebble that started the whole affair. "I'm not sure there's anything we can do to stop them. What are they going to live on? Where are they going to live? I don't see how they can stop until they have eaten up everything around them including themselves." He looked down, shaking his head, "I should never have come. I should never have come south at all. I should have persuaded Manueline to go north and I should never have led them through the forest. They will destroy this place just as surely as they destroyed the country they came from."

"Wals it's not your fault. Whatever they have done, was done by them, not by you. It was never your intention that they should do all the terrible things they have done. You had your own path and your own purpose; that they chose to follow you is not something you are responsible for; the responsibility is theirs, not yours." Wals was still looking at the ground, apparently unconvinced; he looked up when she spoke again reaching out and taking his hand. "Listen, you have no business taking their guilt on yourself. It is theirs, not yours. If you take that away from them, you take their humanity away at the same time. You must allow them the responsibility for what they have done, if you do not they will never redeem themselves and you will become trapped in a device of your own making. Don't do it Wals, let go of it, for all our sakes, let it go."

The others had gathered round as Illumina spoke. Manueline sat quietly watching them both. She was tense at first but her face slowly relaxed as Illumina spoke.

Libby watched and listened, a quiet smile coming to his face, nodding his head as Illumina finally said 'let it go'.

Felice and Cosimo stood on the edge of the circle looking up at Illumina on Cavalla, seeing her clearly in what she said. Seeing both her and the importance of what she said.

Nina was further back sitting on her horse watching and listening. As Illumina said, 'Wals it's not your fault.' Nina let go of the reins and brought her hands up either side of her face. She did not cover her ears but she did close her eyes briefly as though she could not bear to look. Then she opened them again, unable to face what was in her any more than she could face the world outside. She put her head back and looked up at the sky and shook her head from side to side, as Illumina said 'let it go.' She shook her head and moaned.

Drem and Brac were standing either side of Nina, both of them watching the whole scene intently. Their gaze shifted from one to another of the parties involved. Brac took a step towards Nina. Drem smiled sadly and shook his head and Brac stepped back again.

To follow this thread in the story go to: Over and Over

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