The Birth of People's Republic of Antartica, стр. 147

Portent ruled Clarence West. This should explain my reception, “It is told!” I was the focus of their high dreams. It was as Lazarus planned. He taught me that I could never fight Lykantropovin as effectively as my legend could. Lazarus maintained that the idea of me, unkillable warlord, not only helped frighten the Ice Cross but also helped win the loyalty of the wretches in the camps under Lykantropovin. The formula was simple. What the wretches lacked was hope. Lazarus made me into their hope incarnate. It was often too successful, moving the wretches to premature revolts. In every camp, I was spoken of as immortal, with the strength of a hundred Lykantropovins. They said I was everywhere at once, attacking by sea at Half Moon Island, attacking by land on King George. Skallagrim Ice-Waster was my dreaming. Theirs was called Grim El Grande—the Great Grim.

And no matter how many wretches my Hielistos slaughtered while fighting the Ice Cross, no matter how little food my Hielistos were able to provide to the camps that fell under my control, or how much worse were the wretches under my protection than they had been under the Ice Cross, there was ever hysterical attendance and celebration of Grim El Grande. Lykantropovin offered them the Charity Factor and security. I offered them hope for a better day. It was a fantastic hope, an impossible hope, a false hope. They must have known that; on some level, they must have understood that if the sponsors of the Ice Cross had cut off our supplies, we all would have perished. This did not happen. Lykantropovin never even threatened to let all the camps starve—despite the fact they came to siding with me. He fed them food and I fed them fantasy. And how does one explain their hatred for the Ice Cross and their worship of me? Lazarus said it, and I restate: The wretches wanted me to be more than their loving Jesus or their militant David or their visionary Moses; they wanted me to be an angry god.

That is why the wretches at Clarence West screamed for me, all that night, into the next day, and the next, when the storm finally weakened, and we had to get away before the Ice Cross came looking. Davey Gaunt and Coquito Blades forbid me to go down again into the tunnels. They were afraid of disease, yes, but more, that the wretches might have torn me apart in celebration. We listened to them, chanting, singing, in many languages, and always refrains of “Great Grim!” and “Freedom!”

No more than a few thousand broke out to get to me. Somehow, as if they could hear through ice, they knew I was leaving. There was a rush up the main tunnel that carried through the cordon of Fathers and outside, before the redoubt. Some of the leaders attempted to keep them out of the wind. The camp was near riot, many more thousands below chanting and marching, waiting to hear how those up top fared. I was cut off from my ship by a mob who expected me to save them.

My memory is that it was late in the day. The storm was finished, and so were we unless we got off. More than the Ice Cross threatened us by then, for the mob inside was trying to force the gate to the redoubt. The Fathers told us they could not hold them. There were killings, many children were being trampled. The leaders begged me that I give their people ships, food, clothing, medicine. Davey Gaunt wanted to fight our way through. Coquito Blades said we could not make it. It was madness until one of the Fathers came up and provided me part of the answer, saying, “Go to them. They won’t hurt you. Tell them they’re free.”

I did it, no one else. Grim Fiddle gave the lie to those people, though he had the truth. I went out on the beach and walked among them. I told them to settle down and to wait. I could have told them to go back inside and wait for another day. It might not have deceived them. I did not try it. I knew I was not mad. I knew I was wrong, just as Father Saint Stephen had been wrong. Three thousand wretches lay down before me like sheep. They listened to me as I got up on a beached berg and preached to them that I was in control, told them the story of how my ships were coming to save them, to carry them, well-fed and warm, away to the west and north, to new lands and bountiful lives. I had to scream over the wind as the sun melted to the horizon and the temperature plunged. I serenaded them with my corrupt pride. That is the sort of shepherd Grim Fiddle was. In my great sealskin mantle, in my wolfskin cowl, holding my harpoon and my truth, I told those wretches to sleep, because when they awoke it would be a new day, and they would be under the protection of the invincible. I had fires built along the waterline, not for warmth but so they could see me silhouetted there against the glacier as they closed their eyes. I waited with them through the night that was no night, that was a long, howling shadow from the north. I refused shelter, moved back and forth among them huddled in clumps like rocks. And when they were all quiet—because they were dead, or if not that, dying—I left them.

That is the sort of black shepherd I was. I sneaked away in the ashen night, like a Norse murderer. My crime was done to people who loved me, was done in the shadows, by deception and betrayal. What could have been a more infamous crime? I murdered them in the worst way, violating any law ever conceived, pagan or