into the memory
after she caught a coughing disease six months later and died, and
how much of it got tangled up after that, when I thought about what
had happened and tried to piece together the pattern of my life.
Memory’s a tricky thing; I think I remember that first dream of
Deesee as though I was still having it right now, but sometimes I
wonder how much of that memory comes from later dreams, or from
what I saw from the Lannic shore when I went to the place by Deesee
where every question has an answer, and saw the Spire rising out of
the sea beyond the breakers, a few hours before it fell. If my life
got caught up in the one big story old Plummer talked about, that
day on the road to Sisnaddi, how much of what happened before then
got rewritten by the storyteller so it would fit the tale he wanted
to tell?
Still, there’s no doubt about what happened
next. A few days after I had the dream, when the rains finally
stopped for good, Aunt Kell wrote a letter to the ruinman she knew
and had one of her daughters run it over. I never did hear whether
the ruinman wrote back or just sent word, but seemingly he had room
for a new prentice and was willing to have a look at me. My mother
got me dressed up and combed my hair till it hurt, and then the two
of us walked the dozen blocks or so from Aunt Kell’s house to the
street with no name where the ruinmen live.
Everybody in Shanuga knows where that street
is, and most of them would shave between their legs with a broken
rock before they’d go there. It’s on the south end of town, just
outside the walls through a gate most other people won’t use, and
the street turns into a muddy road after a bit and heads straight
toward where the old ruins loom up out of the river mists, tall and
gray and stark like bones against the round green shapes of the
hills beyond. The ruinmen’s houses are like every other house in
Shanuga, narrow and close together as though they were drunk and
leaning on each other’s shoulders to keep from falling over, and
they have signs hanging in front of them like the shops of any of
the other guilds in town.
Just before the houses end and the street
turns into a road, though, the ruinmen’s guild hall stands there,
and it looks like a bad dream. Other guilds have halls that look
like houses, only twice or three times as wide and a couple of
stories taller. The ruinmen are, well, ruinmen, and don’t do
anything the same way as anybody else. Their guild hall in Shanuga
is a big gray round thing made of metal that stands way up in the
air like a ball perched on a stick. I learned later that the
ruinmen a century ago took one of the huge water tanks the ancients
put up on the hills here and there, hauled it down to the edge of
town, put it up on its base and used scrap steel from the ruins to
reinforce it and put floors into it. It really is one of the
scariest things in town, unless you’re a ruinman, in which case
it’s your second home.
We didn’t go there, though I stared at the
thing looming up above the end of the street all the way from the
gate to the front door of the house where we were headed. My mother
knocked on the door; a prentice answered; they exchanged a few
words, and then he let my mother and me in and left us in a couple
of chairs in the little front parlor.
A little while later Mister Garman came down
the stairs from above. He wasn’t Gray Garman yet, or at least there
wasn’t more than a little bit of gray in his hair back then, but he
had the same frown as always and the same habit of saying little
and listening a lot. I know he had some questions for my mother,
and a few for me, but I honestly don’t remember a word of what was
said. For all that I’d been jumping up and down at the thought of
becoming a ruinman’s prentice, I was as scared at that moment as
I’ve ever been since. Mister Garman was big and muscled and
scarred, and I guessed even then that trying to wheedle or coax him
the way I could my mother or
after she caught a coughing disease six months later and died, and
how much of it got tangled up after that, when I thought about what
had happened and tried to piece together the pattern of my life.
Memory’s a tricky thing; I think I remember that first dream of
Deesee as though I was still having it right now, but sometimes I
wonder how much of that memory comes from later dreams, or from
what I saw from the Lannic shore when I went to the place by Deesee
where every question has an answer, and saw the Spire rising out of
the sea beyond the breakers, a few hours before it fell. If my life
got caught up in the one big story old Plummer talked about, that
day on the road to Sisnaddi, how much of what happened before then
got rewritten by the storyteller so it would fit the tale he wanted
to tell?
Still, there’s no doubt about what happened
next. A few days after I had the dream, when the rains finally
stopped for good, Aunt Kell wrote a letter to the ruinman she knew
and had one of her daughters run it over. I never did hear whether
the ruinman wrote back or just sent word, but seemingly he had room
for a new prentice and was willing to have a look at me. My mother
got me dressed up and combed my hair till it hurt, and then the two
of us walked the dozen blocks or so from Aunt Kell’s house to the
street with no name where the ruinmen live.
Everybody in Shanuga knows where that street
is, and most of them would shave between their legs with a broken
rock before they’d go there. It’s on the south end of town, just
outside the walls through a gate most other people won’t use, and
the street turns into a muddy road after a bit and heads straight
toward where the old ruins loom up out of the river mists, tall and
gray and stark like bones against the round green shapes of the
hills beyond. The ruinmen’s houses are like every other house in
Shanuga, narrow and close together as though they were drunk and
leaning on each other’s shoulders to keep from falling over, and
they have signs hanging in front of them like the shops of any of
the other guilds in town.
Just before the houses end and the street
turns into a road, though, the ruinmen’s guild hall stands there,
and it looks like a bad dream. Other guilds have halls that look
like houses, only twice or three times as wide and a couple of
stories taller. The ruinmen are, well, ruinmen, and don’t do
anything the same way as anybody else. Their guild hall in Shanuga
is a big gray round thing made of metal that stands way up in the
air like a ball perched on a stick. I learned later that the
ruinmen a century ago took one of the huge water tanks the ancients
put up on the hills here and there, hauled it down to the edge of
town, put it up on its base and used scrap steel from the ruins to
reinforce it and put floors into it. It really is one of the
scariest things in town, unless you’re a ruinman, in which case
it’s your second home.
We didn’t go there, though I stared at the
thing looming up above the end of the street all the way from the
gate to the front door of the house where we were headed. My mother
knocked on the door; a prentice answered; they exchanged a few
words, and then he let my mother and me in and left us in a couple
of chairs in the little front parlor.
A little while later Mister Garman came down
the stairs from above. He wasn’t Gray Garman yet, or at least there
wasn’t more than a little bit of gray in his hair back then, but he
had the same frown as always and the same habit of saying little
and listening a lot. I know he had some questions for my mother,
and a few for me, but I honestly don’t remember a word of what was
said. For all that I’d been jumping up and down at the thought of
becoming a ruinman’s prentice, I was as scared at that moment as
I’ve ever been since. Mister Garman was big and muscled and
scarred, and I guessed even then that trying to wheedle or coax him
the way I could my mother or
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