Needless to say, I hadn't asked Donnah to order in a raw fish banquet for us; and I feared this was a bitter jest aimed at discomfiting the newly-arrived Tam who had never eaten such a thing in his fife before. Maybe Chanoose had suggested our evening's menu to Donnah! Though raw fish was to my own taste—with reservations—I felt bound to apologize for the strange cuisine and assure Tam that it had nothing to do with regular Pecawar cuisine. I knew that he preferred spiced sausages, lamb pasties, faggots, blood pudding and such. If I'd had any sense, I should have foreseen something of the sort. I resolved to have a firm word with Donnah the next day.
But Tam claimed to enjoy all this raw fish, dipped in pepper and mustard sauces, as a novelty; and Peli pressed questions on her compatriot to make him feel very much the honoured guest; and perhaps distract him from what he was munching.
As she quizzed Tam, so the true—shall I say enormity?—of what I'd done in summoning him to Pecawar became more apparent.
Soon curious words and phrases were flying about, such as "saggars" (which are fire-clay boxes) and "biscuits" (which are what you call fired pots before they get glazed), and "overglazing in a muffle fire" and "burners who watch the kiln".
"Burners?" I interrupted.
"People have to watch a fire to keep it constant."
"How long do they do that for?"
"Sixty hours or thereabouts."
"Oh. And your clay has to be crushed and churned first of all under a millstone?"
"Right; that's to render it soft and fine enough. Oh, I could fix up a grinding wheel sufficient to my needs, though I doubt I'll need one."
"Why not?"
"No suitable clay. I'll have to turn my hand to brickware—or lustre and majolica. I reckon I can design a small kiln which won't need constant attention."
"I'll pitch in/' said Peli. "It'll give me something to do with my paws. Who knows, you setting up shop here could be quite like, well, the new Spanglestream restaurant opening!"
Tam surveyed a few slivers of fish remaining on his plate. "Perhaps," he sighed.
"Tam," I said, "I'll find you the clay you need—the clay to make fleuradieu porcelain! I promise I will."
"But . . . how?"
"Tell me exactly what these kaolin and petuntse clays look like and smell like, and anything else about them."
So he told me, though it isn't too easy to detail the hue and the feel of types of clay I don't suppose he believed my promise, and I didn't explain further in case nothing did come of my plan.
That night I dreamed up a river for myself. That night I dreamed up a Worm. And the Worm rose from the depths of the waters; from the depths within me.
Hullo, Worm. Solved any riddles lately?
Hullo yourself. It isn 't easy. Why is there a universe? Why is there a me? There's nothing to compare me with. Now if only I could contact another of my ilk. . . .
Just what are you getting at?
Tis hut an idle notion.
Well, we don't have time for idle notions. What are we going to do about the Godmind, eh?
Aren’t people doing it already, by booking tickets for my Ka-store? Pity there's an upper limit to the number of Kas I can swallow.
Say that again!
There's still room for you, if you get bored with being my priestess. Just jump in the river and I'll see to the rest.
You 're having me on, Worm. You 're trying to panic me. Admit it!
You can hardly expect me to swallow an infinite number of persons. Obviously there's an upper limit.
And it's large enough for everyone, I’ll bet!
I do wish you would join me.
Sorry. Other duties call. And here's one of those duties, right off: I need clay.
Clay?
I need certain types of clay. Otherwise I'll have done the dirty on my friend Tam.
Explain.
So I did. Will you search the memories in your Ka-store? Someone may know where to find kaolin and petuntse locally.
No problem. I already know.
You do?
It’s underwater, on the bed of my river. The stuff you call kaolin is about a league south of here. You 'll find petuntse half a league beyond.
On the river bed? Sequestered by water and stingers, and by madness for any man. . . .
The stuff's just offshore. A person could wade out and dig, if they held their breath.
Worm, it's time to talk about men.
Need some advice?
Don't be daft. I want you to promise that if Tam drinks of you you 'll let him enter the river.
And my Ka -store too? I don't much care for the taste of the several (lead Sons I swallowed.
Tam’s different. He’s gentle. Most of our men are, over here in the east. They ve learned to flow with the world.
Hmm, I seem to recall they weren 't so gentle recently—during a certain war.
And whose fault is that? You provoked the war!
Oh. So 1 did. And now you ’re asking for all men to drink of me and enter the Ka-store? That's what this request of yours implies.
Anything to get Tam his day! Okay, so that's what I'm asking.
Hmm, but that would put an end to the female monopoly of the river. Which would turn your own world upside-down and my Ka-store too. My whole inner landscape would alter. I don't think I like that.
If all our men get burnt up by the Godmind, and there are no more fathers, your inner landscape isn't going to get much more input from anyone!
My dear, I already contain multitudes of experience; so many are the Kas that I have swallowed.
Look: the Godmind wants to zap you. It'll find that a damn sight easier if it has access to crowds of dead men's Kas hereabouts.
True. ... I must survive. Therefore you must all survive in me, man and woman alike. You’re right. Together we stand; together we'll unriddle the universe too, who knows?
Couldn 't you accept men into the Ka-store but somehow forbid them access to the river? Except as now, for the one-go?
In that case how could Tam go pledging in the water to dig clay?
Oh. Um.
It's more of a problem than that, Yaleen . . . though I believe I spy a solution.
Let me explain how it is at present that men are able to sail once and once only; and why twice brings madness and death. Down Tambimatu way, deep in the jungle, there's a little plant which catches insects to eat. This plant resembles toothy green jaws, yawning wide. If you touch the jaws once, nothing happens. A falling leaf might touch them once, or a drop of water. But if you touch them twice in the same manner, the jaws snap shut and devour. You see, something which touches twice is alive and active. I'm like that plant. I have arranged myself so as to ignore the first touch of a man—his first journey on my river.
And if the same fellow touches you twice, you seize him?
Just so. I could re-arrange myself so that a man's first brush with me kills him. That way men could drink of me, and gain the Ka -store, but they couldn’t ever stray offshore. Alternatively I could re-arrange myself so that men always have free access to the river.
Wait a minute! Are you saying that you could have fixed things during the war to give our whole army safe passage downstream? You could have kept your jaws shut?
Dear me. Those Sons might have sent reinforcements over.
Fat chance, with you back in position blocking the way across! You just wanted to spin things out.
Might I remind you, Yaleen, that you never asked any such favour of me?
True. Too damn true. Right then I could have curled up inside with embarrassment and grief. All that extra needless suffering; now I knew it for a fact. I wished I hadn't mentioned the matter.
Smug bug, I snarled.
Temper! You do want some clay for your boyfriend, don’t you?
Yes. Sorry.
To resume: what I propose is that I shall turn out my lamp of death, which bums the moths of men. I shall extinguish it for a while. Your Tam will gain access to his
clay. During this time you should build dikes in the shallows where the clay is, to hold the water back. You could drive in stakes to fix a wicker fence to, then pile bags of sand and heaps of stone along this fence. After that, bail out all the river-water. That part of the river bed will become land. Once that's done, thereafter I'll kill any man who ventures on the water at all. But all men shall drink of me and enter me at death—of the wisdom of that, I'm thoroughly persuaded. And only women shall sail.
Hang on. If men can 7 sail at all, how will they get wedded? How can they follow their fiancees to distant towns—hundreds of leagues in some cases? Lovers would have to aim their arrows much closer to home. What fun would a girl’s wanderweeks be? How could our towns be meshed by marriage, and the gene-pool stirred?
Just last week I gathered in the Ka of a woman who fell from the sky at Guineamoy.
What?
And from her I gather that some people have started experimenting with transport by steerable balloon. Excellent! Such balloons can carry lovers on honeymoon flights—how enchanting! A once in a lifetime experience. I think that solves the problem.
Balloons! There'd been some talk of military balloons, but I thought nothing had come of it. . . .
Well I never did, I said.
Somebody else did. But she fell out—from a few hundred spans high. It's a really neat death. Elegant and graceful; bar the final splat. At the time she rather spoiled the effect by being so scared but in retrospect she can appreciate it better. If you want to die and join me and don't fancy drowning yourself. I'd seriously recommend leaping from a balloon. I assure you the last instant, when you get broken, is hardly noticeable.
Thanks for the tip. I was planning on surviving a while longer. In fact, I was planning on everybody, everywhere, surviving.
Thus totally trouncing the Godmind?
That's the general idea.
I need a fresh perspective on that, Yaleen. I've been trying to feel my way along the psylink to Earth, then out again in another direction. I need to find another Worm like me. Strength in numbers! Two eyes see deeper than one! Frankly I’m not having much luck on my own, so if you'd care to jump out of a balloon. . . .
So that was it. The Worm wanted to project me through Ka-space once again.
Since I didn't answer, the Worm continued. Meanwhile, that’s the offer Your men gain access to my Ka -store—and lose the river entirely.
All for a few barrels of clay. . . .
No, not just for that. For the sake of every man alive. Actually, the Worm's offer ought to delight the river guild. They would continue to control the waterway.
Does my priestess so pledge, for her people?
Okay, agreed.
So be it. Now you carry on dreaming, and I’ll show you the precise sites of those clay deposits.
At first Chanoose was incensed.
"You want to make mud pies? What is this, a complete reversion to childhood?"
"I intend to help my friend and companion get the materials he needs for his art. I insist. You yourself said we could do with some decent plates and vases in the temple."
"I did?"
"Didn't you?" I asked innocently.
"So now you want a gang of riverwomen to dam and drain two stretches of river!"
"Ah, there's more to this, Quaymistress. And if I don't get my way, you won't get yours. What I've arranged with the Worm is as follows. . . ." And I explained.
When I'd done, Chanoose said quietly, "You impulsive imbecile. You really are incredible." She spoke for form's sake only; I could see that her brain was pumping away nineteen to the dozen.
All of a sudden her eyes shone and she almost did a dance, there before my throne. "Got it! Oh yes, I've got it! We time the work on these wretched dikes just long enough to sail all the captured Sons up north and ferry them over. That way, we shan't need half a 'jack army to escort them. We can keep the Sons chained up. We can take on local militia guards at each town. And while that's going on, we'll sail the whole 'jack army back home to Jangali—before they get too accustomed to foreign parts, or too restive.
"All those repatriated captives ought to mess up the west bank nicely. I shouldn't be surprised if half of them turn bandit, or try to overthrow their government. Then when everyone's well and truly back where they belong, hey presto, the dikes get finished. Your Worm opens its jaws again. Immediate embargo on the river! Brilliant, brilliant." You'd think she had thought of it herself.
"Yes indeed! And we'll start putting men on the temple rolls. They'll accept the new set-up. We'll say it was the only way we could negotiate them a safe conduct into the Ka-store. By the way, the Worm's spot-on about balloon experiments. I think I'll slip news of those to the Pecawar Puhlicizer—"
"Including how you can fall out of them?"
"We'll have to tighten our grip on balloons. Invest in them; that's best. Hmm, which leaves us with one little problem: the black current only stretching just north of Aladalia. . . . Never mind, never mind! You can have your dikes, Yaleen; rest easy. And / have signals to send."
Departure of one satisfied customer. Or so I thought; she was back within a minute.
"Entirely forgot! This all drove it right out of my head. Double benefit, though, Yaleen! Recently a savant in Ajelobo approached the Guild. He's done a couple of services for us before. Sees things our way, he does. Well, he's been trying to analyse the nature of the current and the Godmind, based on what's been published already. So, what with the river being open to everyone for a while, we can sail him down here—"
"I'm not having anyone kibitzing over my shoulder!"
"Of course not, dear girl. He won't bother you. But if he's on hand when you finish The Book of the Stars—which I shan't even enquire about, so as not to irk you—how utterly convenient! Meantime, you could possibly bring yourself to iron out a few earlier points which puzzle him."
"Such as how he's going to travel home afterwards? It's nigh on four hundred leagues to Ajelobo."
"Not quite."
"He won't be able to sail home."
"Nor could the army, till now—and look how that problem's been solved. This fellow will probably return by balloon. Mind you—" and Chanoose smartly changed the subject—"if the Sons mount another invasion while the river's open, we could be in a mess— supposing the current let them plough through it on rafts. Which I doubt! Rafts haven't the draught of a boat, and the current's substance isn't ordinary. But even so! We'd better send all prisoners north securely battened under hatches in their chains, so that no westerners spy what's going on. We'll ferry them across at the last possible moment."
"If the Sons wanted to invade, they could do it now—up north of Aladalia."
"And doesn't every last jill and 'jack from Firsthome to Umdala know that, Yaleen, thanks to you! But really, that's way beyond the other enemy capital at Manhome North; so presumably the logistics forbid. That was your reasoning in leaving the far north unprotected, I take it?" (To which I said nothing.) Chanoose rubbed her hands. "Fine, that's settled then."
Off she went again. Five minutes later she was back, whistling
Masts High! Breezes Fly!
"While the river's open to everyone, we'll hold a Grand Regatta here, that's what. We'll bring the date forward from the autumn. We'll invite men from Verrino and Gangee. There'll be a grand initiation ceremony, with flags and bunting and masquerades and dances aboard the boats. It'll be a sort of official opening of the Ka- store to men—though obviously Pecawar men can join in earlier, and the 'jack army will be passing through beforehand."
"Hang on! Aren't all our boats going to be full up with prisoners and armies?"
"I'm sure we can spare a few more vessels—if we suspend ordinary trade for a while, and cram those prisoners in tight."
"Poor sods."
"You don't mean that."
"Maybe not."
"That's how we'll do it."
"Yes, but we're sending the Sons north under hatches for security reason
s. Now we're going to have men dancing on deck—not to mention a whole 'jack army on the water."
"Ah, but the command in the west will assume we've made a compact with the current. They won't know what sort, so long as they don't see their own men benefiting. Actually, it would be really neat if we could fool them into launching rafts across the current. Maybe we ought to feed some half-truths to the captives? Stuff they could blab when they got back home?"
"Some people can be too clever for their own good, Chanoose."
"I thought that was your speciality, Yaleen." Oh, she was indefatigable.
"So," I said, "We'll recruit lots of fellows from nearby towns by offering free trips to the Pecawar regatta."
Chanoose looked amazed. "Free? Who said anything about free? Does it cost nothing to build your dikes? Or to lay on a regatta? Plus a balloon—we'd better get hold of a balloon to accustom young lovers to the idea. Free indeed! What an impractical child you are."
"Not quite! Maybe we ought to discuss the royalties for my next book here and now!" Here I was feeding her a half-truth; for I was pinning my hopes on the copy, not on the original.
She ignored this feint. "I'm grateful for your comments. You point up the need for tight logistics." And off she went, humming her time.
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