Discworld and Member Articles
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Written by TheJackal
Saturday, 27 August 2005 |
It is amazing how fear can be a great motivator. It can urge you to run faster; it can rev up an engine that was on its last legs; it can even make a grown man cry and beg for his life (especially if they ever encountered Rubeus’ wrath).
In Ron’s case, fear made him run faster and over longer distances. He tried to block out of his mind the tiredness and pain in his legs. Instead, his mind thought of other things. It was currently reliving the events of thirty years ago. Of them, some things were hazy in Ron’s mind and others that he simply couldn’t recall at all. There were also memories that he could never forget, such as the rain.
Ah yes, the rain. It had rained unusually hard that night. Now that was something one could never forget. Deep, delving, strong, seeping. It was the kind of rain that got everywhere.
There were lots of other things Ron remembered quite well from that night, though he wished he couldn’t. Over the years Ron had been quite successful in blocking those thoughts from his mind, but now…now they swam back, encircling him in a whirlpool of the mind. A small spark that had long burned in the back of his memory had now burst into a burning fire that engulfed Ron’s every thought. It was focused solely on that terrible day…
It had only been his second week as a fully qualified Mediator, going out into the world to do the work he had been trained so long for. Ron was part of the Order’s new wave of recruits.
In the past, acceptance into the Order of Mediators had been next to impossible, unless you were the best of the best. But times were changing. Stavromula’s population had soared in the past five hundred years or so. The Brothers had been slow to meet that change head on, though eventually they were forced to.
Things had reached crisis point when the Order realised that they had barely enough men meet their present requirements. For a short while the idea had even been broached of contracting out for others to become temporary Mediators. But this notion never rose off the ground; it was simply too horrible for the Brothers to stomach. Instead, heavy recruiting took place. The standard requirements to qualify for training school were lowered, thus allowing many people like Ron to cross the threshold.
And so on that faithful night, Brother Ron, part of the Order’s great future hope, and Gee, more senior and currently the more intoxicated, ran and staggered respectively towards the entrance of the house.
‘Buggerit,’ said Gee, who had just stubbed his toe on a small rock.
‘Shut up,’ commanded Ron, who had taken up leadership of the Job due to being the only one remotely sound of body and mind.
Gee had sobered up somewhat since leaving the tavern, but still hadn’t even regained enough self-composure to focus on blocking out the effects of the cold and the rain. Gee hadn’t noticed it when they left the tavern, but a two-mile trek up hill had sorted that out. He didn’t like sobriety in general, but being sober during a crisis was something Gee simply did not do.
‘Are we too late, lad?’ whispered Gee, who was still shaking.
‘I’m not sure. I can’t see anything.’
They crept closer, towards a window. When they got there, a horrible sight met them. The baby had been born. Worse still, both mother and son were alive.
‘Buggerit all to hell,’ exclaimed Gee.
‘Shit shit shit,’ added Ron.
They stood there in stunned silence. They had failed to complete their task. Both knew what that meant. Basically, they were fucked.
‘So em…what’s the best course of action then?’ asked Ron, in a trembling voice. He wasn’t used to being in charge and didn’t want to be either.
‘I’m not sure, lad,’ replied Gee. ‘What I do know is that we can’t tell anyone about his. Not anyone.’
Ron was shocked at this prospect. ‘You can’t be serious?’
‘Oh, but I am, lad. Do you know what they’d do to us if they knew we messed up?’
‘No,’ replied Ron truthfully. ‘What?’
‘I don’t either. Can’t remember anybody ever making a cock up like this. But it's bound to be something very bad.’
‘Maybe if we tell them what happened they will go easy on us?’ replied Ron, all too unconvincingly.
‘Yeh, I’m sure they’ll forgive and forget, no harm no foul. They’ll just pat us on the back and say better luck next time guys. Get a grip, lad. I presume you’ve heard of what Rubeus did to the servant who served him his dinner too cold?* Now imagine what he would do to us.’
Ron had indeed heard the story. He shivered.
‘Don’t worry about it, lad. It’ll be all right. I’ve been doing job this a long time you know.’
‘So you’re saying that you’ve got drunk on hundreds of occasions, forgotten what Job you had to do, remembered too late, but still got through it okay?’ asked Ron.
‘Well…no actually. I’ll admit this is the first time anything like this has happened to me,’ conceded Gee. ‘Then again, I do have immensely more experience than you.’
‘But not of this type of thing,’ Ron insisted.
And that was that. There was nothing else either could do, except keep their mouths shut and go their separate ways. Ron scampered off home, and Gee headed back to the tavern to see if he could add new meaning to the expression “extremely drunk”.
That had been thirty years ago. After a while, when their cock-up had gone unnoticed, Ron had fooled himself into thinking that everything had simply worked itself out. Needless to say, he was wrong.
__________
* It is best not to go into too much detail here, but lets just say it involved a potato peeler, pieces of flesh, and whole lot of blood.
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