by Gene Wolfe
In the middle of this disk of stars, as it at first appeared to me, shone a single blue star larger and brighter than all the rest. It waxed even as I watched it, so that I soon understood that it could not be as remote as I had supposed. The ship, driven by light, outraced light, even as the ships upon the uneasy seas of Urth, driven by the wind, had once outraced that wind, close-hauled. Yet even so, the blue star could be no remote object; and if it were a star of any sort, we were doomed, for we steered for its heart.
Larger it grew and larger, and across its center there appeared a single, curving line of black, a line like the Claw — the Claw of the Conciliator as it had appeared when I had seen it first, when I had drawn it forth from my sabretache, and Dorcas and I had held it up to the night sky, astonished at its blue radiance.
Though the blue star waxed, as I have said, that curving line of black waxed faster, until it nearly blotted out the disk (for by this time it was a disk) of blue. At last I saw it for what it was — a single cable still linking the mast that the mutists had blown away to our ship. I caught it, and from that vantage point saw our universe, which is called Briah, fade until it vanished like a dream.
Chapter XV — Yesod
BY ALL logic, I ought to have climbed down that cable to the ship, but I did not. I had caught it at a point near enough to the ship that the jibsails somewhat blocked my view, and I (whether thinking myself indestructible or already destroyed, I cannot say) climbed instead until I reached the detached mast itself, and then out upon a tilted yard to the end; and there I clung and watched.
What I saw cannot truly be described, though I will attempt it. The blue star was already a disk of clear azure. I have said it was not so distant as the ghost stars. But it was truly there, as they were not; so who is to say which was farthest? As I stared at it, I became more aware of their falsity — not merely that they were not where they appeared to be, but that they did not exist at all, that they were not merely phantoms, but, like most phantoms, lies. The azure disk widened until at last I saw it streaked with wisps of cloud. Then I laughed to myself, and in laughing was suddenly aware of my danger, aware that I might perish at any moment for having done as I had done. Yet I remained where I was for some time more.
Into the center of that disk we plunged, so that for a moment there was a ring of ebony set with ghostly stars all around our ship, the Diadem of Briah.
Then we were through and seemed suspended in azure light; behind us, where once I had seen the corona lucis of the young suns, I now saw our universe, a circle no larger than an ebon moon in the sky of Yesod, a moon that soon shrank to a solitary mote, then vanished.
If you who may someday read this retain the least respect for me despite the manifold follies I have recounted, you must lose it now, for I am about to tell you how I started as a baby does to see a turnip ghost. When Jonas and I rode to the House Absolute, we were attacked by Hethor’s notules, mirror-fetched creatures that fly like so many scraps of scorched parchment up a chimney, but for all their insubstantiality can kill. Now I, looking aft toward the vanishing of Briah, thought to see such creatures again, but of silver, not fuligin as the notules were.
And I was struck by terror and sought to hide myself behind the yard. A moment later I realized what they were, as you have no doubt realized already — mere tatters torn from the gossamer burden of the ruined mast and whipped to frenzy by a wind. Yet that meant there was an atmosphere here, however thin, and not the void. I looked at the ship and saw it in all its vastness bare, all its sails vanished, ten thousand masts and a hundred thousand spars standing like a wood in winter.
How strange it was to cling there, breathing my own already outworn atmosphere, knowing but never feeling the mighty tempest that raged around me. I pulled both necklaces from my neck, and at once I was nearly torn from my perch, my ears filled with the roaring of a hurricane.
And I drank in that air! Words cannot do it justice save by saying that it was the air of Yesod, icy cold and golden with life. Never before had I tasted such air, and yet I seemed to know it.
It stripped my torn shirt from my back and sent it flapping off to join the scraps of the ruined sails, and in that instant I knew it indeed. On the evening I departed the Old Citadel for exile, I walked the Water Way, seeing the argosies and carracks that plied the wide river-road of Gyoll, and a wind had sprung up that sent my guild cloak billowing behind me and told me of the north; now that wind blew again, chanting loud of new years and singing all the songs of a new world.
But where? Beneath our ship, I saw nothing but an azure bowl and such wisps of cloud as I had beheld while we were yet in the old and soiled universe standing before this. After a moment or two (for it was an agony to remain inactive in that air) I gave up the puzzle and began the climb down to the ship.
And then I saw it — not below, where I had looked, but over my head, a vast and noble curve stretching away to either side, with white cloud flying between ourselves and it, a world all speckled over with blue and green like the egg of a wild bird.
And I saw a thing stranger still — the coming of Night to that new world. Like a brother of the guild, she wore a cloak of fuligin, spreading it over all that fair world as I watched, so that I recalled she had been the mother of Noctua in the tale I had once read Jonas from the brown book, that dire-wolves had frisked about her heels like puppies, and she had passed behind Hesperus and Sirus; and I wondered what made the ship fly on as it did, outracing the night, when its sails were furled and no light could urge it forward.
In the air of Urth, the ships of the Hierodules went where they would, and even the ship that had carried me (with Idas and Purn, though I had not known it) to this ship had initially made use of other means. Clearly this ship commanded them too, but it seemed strange her captain urged her straight on in such a way. As I climbed down, I considered these things — finding it easier to consider them than to come to any conclusion.
Before I reached the deck, the ship herself was plunged in darkness. The wind blew unabated, as though to sweep me away. It seemed to me that I should now feel the attraction of Yesod, but there was only the slight pull of the holds, as it had been in the void. At last I was so foolish as to try a short leap. The hurricane breath of Yesod caught me like a windblown leaf, and my leap sent me tumbling down the deck like a gymnast; I was fortunate that it did not send me crashing into a mast.
Bruised and bewildered, I groped along the deck in search of a hatch. I found none, and I had reconciled myself to waiting for day when day came, as sudden as the voice of a trumpet. The sun of Yesod was of purest white-hot gold, and it lifted itself above a dark horizon as sharply curved as the top of a buckler.
For an instant it seemed to me that I heard the voices of the Gandharvas, the singers before the throne of the Pancreator. Then I saw far ahead of the ship (for my wanderings in search of a hatch had taken me nearly to the bow) the far-spreading wings of a great bird. We rushed toward it like an avalanche, but it saw us, and with a single beat of those mighty wings rose above us, singing still. Its wings were white, its breast like frost; and if a lark of Urth may be likened to a flute, the voice of this bird of Yesod was an orchestra, for it seemed to have many voices that sang all together, some high and piercingly sweet, some deeper than any drum.
Cold though I was — and I felt nearly frozen — I could not but stop and listen to it; and when it was astern and out of hearing, and I could see it no longer because of the thronging masts, I looked forward again for another.
There was none, but the sky was not empty. A ship of a kind new to me sailed there on wings wider than the bird’s and as slender as sword blades. We passed beneath it as we had passed beneath the bird; when we did, it folded its long wings and dove at us, so that I thought for a moment it must crash into us and perish, for it had not a thousandth part of our bulk.
It passed above the top of the masts as a dart flies over the spears of an army, drew ahead of us once more, and settled on our bowsp
rit until it lay there as a pard stretches itself upon some slender branch to watch a trail for deer, or to bask in the sun.
I waited for the crew of the smaller ship to appear, but they did not. After a moment, it seemed their ship held ours more closely than I had supposed; and after a moment more, as I watched wondering — that I had been mistaken to think it a ship at all and surely wrong to believe I had seen it hanging alone, argent against that cerulean world, or soaring above the forest of our masts. Rather it seemed a part of our own ship, of the ship on which I had now sailed (as it seemed to me) for so long, an oddly thickened bowsprit or beakhead, its wings no more than flying braces to hold it the more firmly to the bow.
Soon I recalled that when the old Autarch had been brought to Yesod, just such a ship had come for him. Glorying, I raced over the deck searching for a hatch; and it was good to run in that cold and in that air, though every limping stride stung my feet; and at last I leaped up, and the wind took me again as I had known it would and bore me far down that immense hull before I could seize hold of a backstay that nearly tore my arms from their sockets.
It was enough. In my wild flight I had caught sight of the rent through which my little command had climbed to the deck. I ran to it and plunged into the familiar warmth and errant gleams of the interior.
That voice which could never be distinctly heard and yet could always be understood thundered in every corridor, calling for the Epitome of Urth; and I ran on, happy for the warmth, feeling the pure air of Yesod penetrate even here, sure that my time of testing was at last at hand, or nearly so.
Parties of sailors were searching the ship, but for a long while I could not make contact with them, though I could hear them all about me, and sometimes catch a glimpse of one. At last, opening a shadowy door, I stepped through onto a grillwork platform and saw in the dim radiance from overhead a vast plain of jumbled lumber and machinery, where papers spilled like banks of dirty snow and scented dust lay in pools like water. If it were not the spot from which Sidero had thrown me, it was very like it.
Toward me across this space moved a small procession, and after a moment I realized it was a triumphal one. Many of the sailors carried lights, and slashed the dimness with their beams to create fantastic patterns, while others capered or danced. Some were singing:
Away, mate, away! We’ll dig no more today!
For we’re signed aboard on a long, long trip,
To the end of the sky on a big, big ship,
And we won’t come back till her sails rip!
No, we won’t come back at all!
And so on.
Not all those in this procession were sailors, however. I saw several beings of polished metal, and indeed after a moment I realized that one was Sidero himself, easily identified because his arm had not been repaired.
A little separated from all these were three figures new to me, a man and two women in cloaks; and ahead of them, leading the column as it seemed, a naked man taller than any of the rest, who walked with his head bowed and his long, fair hair falling over his face. At first I believed him deep in thought, for his hands seemed clasped at his back, and I had often walked so myself, pondering the manifold difficulties that beset our Commonwealth; then I saw that his wrists were bound behind him.
Chapter XVI — The Epitome
NO LONGER so unlearned as I had been, I leaped off the platform and, after a long, slow fall rather pleasant than otherwise, met the procession halfway.
The prisoner did not so much as glance up. Though I could not see his face well, I saw enough to make me certain I had not seen it before. He was of the height of an exultant at least, and I would judge half a head taller than most. His chest and shoulders were magnificently developed, as were his arms, from what I could see of them. As he trudged along, great muscles in his thighs slipped like anacondas beneath skin translucently pale. His golden hair held no trace of gray; and from it and the slenderness of his waist, I judged him no more than twenty-five, and perhaps younger.
The three who followed this extraordinary prisoner could not have appeared more commonplace. All were of average height and seemed to have reached middle age. The man wore tunic and hose under his cloak; the two women had loose gowns that ended just below the knee. None were armed.
As they approached, I stepped well to one side; but only the sailors paid any attention to me. Several (though there were none I recognized) motioned for me to join them, their faces those of revelers who in their excess of joy summon every bystander to their celebration.
I hurried over, and before I knew it Purn had seized me by the hand. I felt a thrill of fear — he was near enough to have stabbed me twice over — but his expression held only welcome. He shouted something I could not quite hear, and slapped my back. In a moment, Gunnie had pushed him to one side and kissed me as soundly as at our first meeting.
“You wormy guiser,” she said, and kissed me again, not so roughly this time, but longer.
It was no use trying to question them in that uproar; and in truth if they were willing to make peace, I (with no friend on board except Sidero) was more than glad they should.
Our procession wound out a doorway and down a long, swooping passage that led to a part of the ship like nothing I had seen before. Its walls were insubstantial, not because they were in any way dreamlike, but because they somehow suggested that they were thinner than tissue and might be burst in an instant, so that I was reminded of the trumpery booths and pavilions of the fair at Saltus, where I had killed Morwenna and met the green man. And for a moment or two I stood amid the hubbub, trying to understand why it should be so.
One of the cloaked women mounted a seat and clapped her hands for quiet. Because the sailors’ high spirits had not been fueled with wine, she was soon obeyed, and my riddle answered: through the thin walls I could hear, however faintly, the rush of the icy air of Yesod. No doubt I had heard it before without being conscious of it.
“Dear friends,” the woman began. “We thank you for your welcome and your help, and for all the many kindnesses all of you have shown us on board your vessel.”
Various sailors spoke or shouted replies, some merely good-natured, others glowing with that rustic politeness which makes the manners of courtiers seem so cheap.
“Many of you are yourselves from Urth, I know. Perhaps it would be well to determine how many. May I see a show of hands? Raise one hand, please, if you were born upon the world called Urth.”
Nearly everyone present raised his hand.
“You know that we have condemned the peoples of Urth, and why. They now feel they have earned our forgiveness, and the chance to resume the places they held of old—”
Most of the sailors booed and jeered, including Purn, but not (as I noted) Gunnie.
“And they have dispatched their Epitome to claim it for them. That he lost heart and concealed himself from us should not be counted against him or them. Rather we consider that the sense of his world’s guilt so manifested should be reckoned in their favor. As you see, we are about to take him to Yesod for his assize. Even as he will represent Urth in the dock, so must others represent it on the gradins. None of you need come, but we have your captain’s permission to take from among you those who wish to come. They will be returned to this ship before it sails again. Those who do not should leave us now.”
A few hands slipped from the back of the crowd.
The woman said, “We ask also that all those not born upon Urth leave us.”
A few more departed. Many of those who remained appeared hardly human to me.
“All the rest of you will come with us?”
There was a chorus of assent.
I called, “Wait!” and sought to push my way to the front, where I would be heard. “If—”
Three things happened at once: Gunnie clapped her hand over my mouth; Purn pinned my arms behind me; and what I had believed only some strange chamber of our ship fell from under me.
It fell sidelong, tumblin
g the crowd of sailors and us into a single struggling mass, and its fall was not in the least like the leaps I had made in the rigging. The hunger of a world drew us at once; and though I do not think it was as great as that of Urth, after so many days in the weak pull of the holds it seemed great indeed.
A monstrous wind shouted outside the bulkheads, and in the wink of an eye the bulkheads themselves vanished. Something, we could not tell what, kept out that wind. Something kept us from tumbling out of the little flier like so many beetles swept from a bench — yet we were in the midst of the sky of Yesod, with only the narrow floor beneath our feet.
That floor tilted and leaped like a destrier in the wildest charge of the most desperate battle ever fought. No teratornis ever slipped down a mountain of air so swiftly as we, and at its bottom we shot upward like a skyrocket, spinning like a shaft in flight.
A moment later, and we were skimming the mastheads of the ship like a swallow, then like a swallow indeed we dove among them and darted between mast and mast, between cable and spar.
Because so many sailors had fallen or half fallen, I could see the faces of the three from Yesod who had led us into the flier, and I was able for the first time to see the full face of their prisoner too. Theirs were calm and amused; his ennobled by the most resolute courage. I knew my own reflected my fear, and felt much as I had when the Ascian pentadactyls had whirled over Guasacht’s schiavoni. I felt something more as well, of which I shall write in a moment.
Those who have never fought suppose that the deserter who flies the field is consumed by shame. He is not, or he would not desert; with only trifling exceptions, battles are fought by cowards afraid to run. And it was just so with me. Ashamed to reveal my terror to Purn and Gunnie, I forced my features into an expression that no doubt resembled real resolution about as much as his death mask resembles the smiling countenance of an old friend. I lifted Gunnie then, muttering some nonsense to the effect that I hoped she had not been hurt. She answered, “It was the poor boy I fell on who caught it,” and I realized she was ashamed just as I was and, just as I was, determined to stand firm though her bowels had turned to milk.