Chapter 59: Coalim
Coalim didn’t like being the center of attention. He felt exposed like a piece of art for the admiration and horror of the Plume’s patrons. Some of them stood on their toes to look at Coalim’s burns.
It had been Pierre’s idea. He’d said:
‘I suppose you could hide for the rest of your lives,’ he was talking to Coalim and the two burnt soldiers, ‘but if you feel like interacting with other people again, help Joanna. The Plume is full every night and Joanna is overwhelmed.’
Coalim thought that Joanna was overwhelmed even in her sleep. She marched up and down the Plume cleaning tables that were polished, not by time but by her incessant cleaning. If possible, that woman would wash with soap the very air she breathed. Even so, Coalim obeyed. Thus did those who knelt: they obeyed. But Pierre hadn’t given an order.
Coalim was Eslarian and in Eslarina you didn’t say anything directly, not even an order, so he understood Pierre’s suggestion as an order. He came down and Pierre was right: there were so many people in the Plume that they leaked onto the street. The instant Coalim showed up, a wave of silence began at his feet, rolling all the way to the street outside. He was surprised to see himself alone and realized he had been mistaken. Pierre hadn’t given an order. Bojet and Gérmon hadn’t come down.
Líran came closer and Coalim took a step back. She stopped. She might just want to break the silence, talk to him like a human being not like a piece of horror, but Coalim’s throat still ached from the stories he had vomited at her feet; things he had never told anyone. Happenings ran to Líran like rivers to the ocean. Coalim was used to being a damm, and he still resented having been torn into a river.
Suddenly the Plume’s silence changed shape. What was just the silence of voices became paralizis of bodies. Bojet emerged at Coalim’s right, Gérmon to his left. Not even Coalim was used to their melted, wrinkled skin, that was red in the valleys, white and dry on the folds. He had learned to ignore his own burnt side, look only at the red-haired half of himself. By the way of it, the Plume might stay paralized forever. Fulbert would invade Baynard and find them lost in time around two and a half burnt men. He’d kill everyone. The end.
Pierre came to the counter, gave instructions to Bojet and Gérmon about how to serve beer and cider. They seemed to be on a stage, the rest of the Plume was the audience. Pierre turned to the audience and made it clear that, if anyone wanted to drink that night, they’d have to order to one of the burnt.
The audience didn’t know what to do. They didn’t even turn to one another to wonder aloud what to do, but kept their eyes aimed at the burnt men. Coalim sawo dragons in every eye.
‘Beer, please.’ It was Leonard, the Accident.
He was surprised at people making way for him as he came to the counter, or rather, as he went up to the stage. The man with white moustache followed him. Jean put a large hand on Leonard’s frail shoulder and glared at Pierre. One-eyed Luc also orded beer.
All the freaks are on stage, thought Coalim.
And the audience stayed unmoved until they heard from the stairs a scream that could be pain or wrath. A laugh followed the scream and a grunt followed the laugh. Vivianne and Marie, the Master Healer of Tuen, came down the stairs. Vivianne gritted her teeth in anger and in pain. Marie laughed, but supported the other woman until they both reached the counter, where Vivianne ordered – or rather, demanded – beer. Bojet gave her a big cup and she gulped half of it before noticind the audience.
‘Beg pardon,’ she said. ‘Did I cut the line?’
Coalim had always been impressed with Vivianne. Not because of the elegance with which she crawled under the ruins of a castle, for her dexterity when she climbed the Rock, the pretty arch of her neck when she gulped down half a beer. What really impressed him was Vivianne’s talent for not getting the human world, a kind of abstraction that made it impossible for her to read other people’s expressions. Maybe because she didn’t really care for anything that wasn’t made of stone.
She was never scared of Bojet and Gérmon and she didn’t get why other people were. Her surprise now at the Plume, the apology without even understanding that the others didn’t want to get near the aberrations, or even that there were aberrations, that broke the silence in the Plume.
Mayor Maurice ordered cider in a whisper and Captai Gaul came to stand by the counter. One by one the audience entered the stage and the abominations became people. Coalim was no longer the center of attention, so he went back to paying attention to everyone else.
He notived Jean’s possessive claw on Leonard’s shoulder. He wondered how Jean could stay that long without blinking and followed the direction of Jean’s glare to find Pierre.
Pierre thanked Vivianne and Vivianne asked what for. Then Pierre’s gaze stayed on her. Coalim knew what Pierre was going through, this seeing Vivianne as for the first time. He had looked at Vivianne the same way on the day Clément held his hand for the first time. Vivianne was climbing the Rock around the Rock (Coalim thought it very confusing that the castle and the maountain had the same name).
He had been sitting on a cove and hid behind a bush when he saw Vivianne coming his way. She was looking for a cave, a tunnel she had discovered when she was ten. She was certain that the tunnel led to the center of the Rock (the mountain), to the roots of the Rock (the castle). There were rumours of ghosts living inside the mountain. Rumours and noise that came from inside the earth, voiceless moans, tearless salt. Some of the castle doors stayed permanently locked because of the milky, blue gloom on the other side.
Perhaps a kind of darkness nested there. Coalim didn’t know and didn’t want to know, so he hid behind the bush when Vivianne climbed past him.
‘Coalim,’ she said, without pausing, ‘Clément is having difficulties. Give him a hand, will you?’
Coalim found Clément a few meters below, shaking with the effort. Clément wasn’t weak, but he was so scared of falling that he clutched the rock with too much strength, wasting energy and shaking.
‘It’s easier this way, my King,’ said Coalim.
He reached out his hand to Clément. It was the first time he touched his king’s skin. But, no, it wasn’t on this day that he took another, better look at Vivianne. It was that other time, when the three of them were inside the Rock and Coalim was serving tea.
‘But he should hug you,’ said Clément.
‘I don’t even know if the Wraith has a body to hug us with.’ Said Vivianne. ‘As far as I know he’s only gloves and cloak. Besides, I don’t miss it.’
‘You don’t miss it? What do you mean you don’t miss it? I read a book about people from another continent. Tinsa, I think. That people hugs all the time as a rule.’
‘Doesn’t sound practical,’ said Vivianne.
‘The book said that the people there are much happier than people who don’t hug as much.’
‘Where is the author from?’ asked Vivianne.
‘I don’t know but I believe her,’ said Clément. ‘Look at us. You have more love for rock than for people. I’d say your heart is ruin rather than muscle.’
‘It’s different with the Wraith,’ said Vivianne. ‘It’s different with magic. Even here, far from Lune, I feel his embrace. It’s stronger than flesh.’
She then stood up and opened her arms.
‘Come here,’ she said.
Clément hesitated, even Coalim was surprised.
‘Didn’t you wish to remember what it was like?’ she asked.
Clément stood up and came to her arms full of suspicion. She embraced him and began to rock in a silent lullaby. Little by little, Clément relaxed and hugged her back. She then turned to Coalim:
‘You too.’
Coalim obeyed and, not really knowing how or why, became part of the embrace. Vivianne then took a step back.
‘It is your new duty,’ she said to Coalim, ‘tu hug Clément every day. I’m leaving tomorrow after all and his mother is worse than an orphan’s mother, because she exists but she’s useless.’
Clément rested his head on Coalim’s shoulder, who started paying more attention to Vivianne from then on. Just like Pierre now in the Plume.
Jean didn’t like Pierre’s smell, even now that his sense of smell wasn’t as good as before. He didn’t worry about now and then. He was once something, now he was something else. It didn’t hurt, it wasn’t difficult and he didn’t have a tail anyway. His senses were different, he saw better during the day, but at night nothing was clear. His nose wasn’t as good and his ears heard sounds he didn’t know existed. At the same time they were deaf to what he was used to hearing. He liked the hands. He liked that sword the one-eyed human had given him, but he missed the mouth, wide and strong. He missed rats and mice. You couldn’t have much fun with humans because they didn’t have tails and the scent-less human didn’t like it when he played with them. The scent-less human had cut away the pain on the day someone put fire on Jean’s tail.
But the scent-less human was awlays with Pierre. Jean knew the name: Pierre. He didn’t know anybody else’s name. What humans called each other had no meaning to him. Pierre’s scent was brushing off on the scent-less human.
The one-eyed human also smelled of darkness, but a worn off kind of darkness, ragged and patched. Pierre’s darkness was fresh and foreign. They came sewn in mystery, wrapped in magic. The hair on Jean’s arms stood on end when Pierre was near. And Pierre was always near.
The other humans smelled of dorment darkness. Not that the darkness was inert, but they smothered the humans’ vitality, just like the scent-less human’s shirt smothered the fire on Jean’s tail. The other humans’ darkness also shivered when Pierre was around, and they began to smell different, each with their own smell, not just damp darkness anymore. Jean didn’t like the smell of people.
Jean himself didn’t smell of darkness anymore. He was enveloped in magic and woke up constantly afraid of his own smell, jumping up, muscles tensed, ready to attack. Attack what? Jean didn’t understand a lot of things, but he didn’t try. He had this magic smell about him and no questions in his brain. The magic was scary, but it was part of him.
Pierre’s darkness had the power to destroy Jean’s new magic. Pierre’s magic could crush the darkness that Jean used to have. The mystery around Pierre smelled of wolf. Jean didn’t like wolves. Yesterday Jean was strolling in one of Chambert’s courtyards. He jumped to the side suddenly because he heard a wolf’s snare. Then he realized he had just walked past Pierre’s shadow. Pierre was on the top of Chambert’s wall.
Pierre reminded him of too many things Jean didn’t like, so Jean decided not to let Pierre inside Chambert anymore. When he felt Pierre’s smell on the wind, Jean turned the wheel that closed the gate. He sensed fear and awe. It took four young humans to turn the wheel that Jean turned with one arm.
But Pierre was already in. He looked up to Jean, who prepared to jump the ten meters down to crush Pierre. He knew he wouldn’t die from the fall because of the magic that surrounded him. He might die of Pierre, but Pierre was already inside, so he had to act, to attack.
Another human appeared beside Pierre. This human also smelled of Pierre.
‘What happened?’
Jean was about to jump. He stopped. He tried to move his ears but they didn’t work right. Even so, even with these ears, he recognized the voice.
‘Jean?’ called the scent-less human who now smelled of Pierre. ‘Get down, you’re going to hurt yourself.’
Jean walked away, far away to a place where Pierre’s smell couldn’t reach him.