Next there was a civic banquet in honour of all the volunteers.
Besides myself, there were six others. The boat which we would sail to the black current was only, in truth, a little ketch. Perhaps this was to present a smaller profile. The ketch was rigged with a lot of little sails, the better to manoeuvre it when we got in close, and keep us from fouling it in the current. At present it rode at anchor a little way out, conveniently separating it from any male influence along the waterfront. The hull of the ketch was painted black. Its sails also were black. It looked like a fabled boat of death, for freighting corpses, perhaps to be set on fire and scuttled. An extensible boom jutted from one side, to carry the collection bucket.
But I'm digressing from the banquet.
It was there that I met my six new boatsisters for the first time— and took an instant dislike to three of them; which is a very high antipathy score for new acquaintances in my experience! Maybe these particular women were over-proud, or pious, or otherwise screwed up by the honour bestowed on them. Maybe I was too. Screwed up, that is. In any case I was younger than all the others; and thus may have seemed presumptuous. Bumptious, even. Consequently I put them on edge, just as they discomfited me.
Two of the others were all right, I suppose, and fairly relaxed.
And the last one, I actually liked—and felt an instant sense of rapport with. She was called Peli, and hailed from Aladalia, which brought back happy memories. Peli was a burly woman in her thirties with a mop of straw hair and a red weather-beaten face; or perhaps her blood pressure was unusually high. She was urgent, eager, informative, and talked very fast. However, she hastened to add, she was not artistic. Even so, she was the only one of us volunteers who had gone shopping in Tambimatu. Now she wore a coiled bangle which had cost her all of ten fish fifty (after bargaining). It must have been the only genuinely hideous gewgaw available in town. I loved her for it.
The banquet was held in the jewellers' guild hall, which doubled as a gem market at other times; however on this occasion there were no men in sight, since this was woman's business.
We mumbled words of introduction to one another; we drank each other's health; we ate grilled fish. Then the quaymistress rose and read out all our citations to the assembled throng. Mine sounded distinctly icky, as though I had won my place simply by swarming around masts like a jackanapes. (No mention, of course, being made of all the circumstances.) And won it too for being a dab hand with the paint brush. Since my hand was still visibly scarred, that seemed unlikely. "Someone's little favourite," I heard a voice mutter.
Afterwards we drank more toasts, and generally failed to get to know each other (Peli excepted); or at least that was my impression.
No matter! The quaymistress of Tambimatu, organizer of the New Year's Eve events, announced a leisurely trip to the source of the river the next day so that we could frame up into a working team.
Leisurely, did I say? Well, yes, that's true. It was leisurely. The quaymistress accompanied us aboard the black ketch—which uniquely had no name whatever painted on side or stem, as though whatever was nameless could not be summoned, and compelled to come—and I have rarely sailed more gently before, except perhaps when we were idling away from Jangali after the fateful festival.
But otherwise! Maybe the quaymistress, as a local, could afford to be blase about our journey. For me it was awesome, almost an ordeal of courage; though fascinating too in a nightmare way. Closer and closer we sailed to that seemingly infinite barrier, to the point where the river which otherwise flowed through our lives unceasingly, was suddenly no more. Where the river ended, vanished. Or rather, where it all began—but began as if created out of nothing.
The waters slid forth like tongues out of a thick-lipped mouth. Stanchions of rocky support, like teeth, stood hundreds of spans apart. Surely the action of the water would wear these supports away eventually—and then the whole Precipice would fall on top of us! Perhaps today.
Away to the west the black current emerged through a narrower supporting arch. Yet terms such as arches or stanchions convey the wrong impression. This suggests that the river was flowing from under a kind of bridge. In fact the cliffs extended right down to the surface of the water, and a little below, blocking any possible access or insight into what lay within this long hole in the Precipices. The supports were only visible because of bulges and ripples and what we could see through the dull glass of the water itself. So the river appeared to be oozing out of something solid—like the trail of slime behind a snail (only in reverse). Enormous snail, mighty trail!
I was glad that Peli was on board with me: so bluffly assertive— like the elder sister that I had never had. I was even more glad when we tacked about, almost within touching distance of the Precipice, to drift back towards the town.
The next day a kind of sacred conclave of the river guild was held on board the schooner Santamaria, which was also riding at anchor. We lucky seven were invited.
Several guildmistresses were present, besides the quaymistress and Marcialla. (She and I rowed over together from the Spry Goose, with myself at the oars.) There followed solemn readings from the private chapbook of the guild; then practical tips, and cautions. I left feeling more chastened than when I had arrived, at the prospect of our holy and dangerous duty. I can't say that I also felt inspired, exactly.
The day after that was New Year's Eve.
So the seven of us set sail in that nameless boat an hour before midnight. It was a clear night. Stars stood gem-bright in one half of the sky. In the other half, nothing: nothing but a wall of darkness. It seemed to me as I hoisted a sail that the black wall was an image of the coming year, containing only the darkness of death. No phosphorescent little beasties silvered the water here. Half-starlight was our only guide; though we did have lanterns, if we chose to light them. We chose not to.
As we sailed out ever so slowly, I brooded much upon the current. Too much, perhaps. The others likewise. Our little ketch was eerily silent, as though we were all holding our breath. Silent, that is, until Peli called out, "How about a song?"
"Be quiet!" hissed someone.
"The current doesn't have ears, dear!" And Peli began to warble one of our river songs out over the lonely deaf waters:
"The River Is the giver Of life, Water-wife—!"
No, Peli definitely was not artistic. Tone-deaf, in fact. Though doubtless the tune she was singing sounded fine in her own head.
"Silence!" called the thin woman from Spanglestream who was nominally in command. "The current senses vibrations."
Does it? Did it? I brooded some more.
We finally hove-to within fifty spans of that deeper darkness which clove the dark waters. We dropped a drift-anchor. A lookout watched anxiously lest we glide closer, trailing drogue or not.
"Yaleen," came the thin woman's order, "extend the boom as far as it'll go. Peli, on the winch. Andra, prepare to receive the first bucketful. Salandra. . . ." Something else.
So I guided the first bucket, with its self-sealing lid, out above the edge of the current on the long boom, and waited for the word to dunk the pail in and haul out a portion of the black substance.
"All ready?"
"Aye." "Aye." "Aye."
"Lower away."
And the bucket smacked into the current. . . .
Madness seized me then.
Insanity rushed over me like flames. I still knew what I was doing. But why I was doing it, I had no idea. Nor had I any choice in the matter. It was as though that pack of fortune cards had sucked me into them, and imprisoned me in a picture! I still remember perfectly well how I scrambled up on the gunwale where the base of the boom was secured. I even heard Peli cry out to me, though I couldn't heed her. I even felt the brush of her fingertips as she tried to snatch me back to safety. I even heard the thin woman shout, "No! If it wants one of us, let it!" It made no difference.
Heedless I ran along that slim boom outstretched across the water —like an acrobat.
But no acrobat was I. No way could I pause in my rush. No way could I pivot and return, had I wished to. As it was, I had no wishes of my own. Only my mad forward momentum kept me from toppling into the river before I even reached the current. But keep me it did; and I raced all the way to the end of the boom— and beyond. For a moment it even seemed that I was running onward through mid-air. But I fell, of course. And was engulfed.
Questing shapes swam around me, flashes of light dazzled me, soft tentacles slid up my nostrils, down my throat, and elsewhere too— they entered every opening in me. But I did not feel that I was suffocating; or drowning.
Yet my life flashed by me willy-nilly. Scenes of girlhood in dusty Pecawar. My initiation when I drank of the black current. My deflowering by Hasso in his attic bower. Verrino and its Observers. Bonfires on the further bank . . . All my secrets, all.
It was as if I fell asleep. And dreams had come to me. Yet not for my entertainment. They came to examine me, to walk around inside my skull and see what was there.
"Yaleen, " sang the dreams. "Ya-leeeen!" they wailed.
I was aware of something immense and old and ... I could not say whether it was wise as well.
It had been watching us, though not with eyes. Rather, with little cells of itself which migrated through us, flavouring us and savouring us before returning whence they came.
It had been feeling us, though not with fingers. Yes, with vibrations. But I didn't understand what kind of vibrations these were.
Or was this simply what I had already been told about the current? What I had mused about it? And now it was reading my musings back to me?
How could I separate myself from this strange state I was in—so as to know which was me, and which was it? I focused, like a dreamer trying to waken in a dream and be aware: not of the ordinary waking world outside, but of the world of the dream itself. I thought fiercely:
What are you?
And stars burned bright, and a world turned round underneath me, seen from so high in the sky that the world was only a ball, a plaything, a toy; and the sky was not blue but black.
What are you? I thought again, twice as fiercely—having no way to cry aloud.
And far away I heard a slurred voice:
"The Worm of the World lam. There is no worm greater. The worm moves not, it flows within itself. On the day when it shall move, the whole world will turn upon its hinges . . .
"Till then, the worm shall watch ... the flow of things.
"Of Woman and Man. ..."
Silence.
But why? How? Who—?
Something hidden reared and coiled around me. And within me too it coiled: it coiled around my mind. Crushing, suffocating, erasing. As I sank into oblivion I thought that I felt some other different creature, huge, slippery and scaly, rise beneath me.
To my surprise I woke to light and life.
I was soaking wet. Lying on a shelf of mud.
Raising my head, I saw spinach puree all before me, tangled up with tropic trees. One of my cheeks blazed as if I had been punched. The back of my right hand pulsed from the red weal of a stinger. But that was all there was, in the way of pain.
Pushing my palms into the mud, I doubled up, knelt—and looked behind me. The river flowed, almost lapping the toecaps of my boots.
I rose, to stare out over the waters. Far away—so far that they just had to be beyond the black current—I made out the sails and masts of a boat. A boat which could only be on the eastern side of the waterway.
And shivering in spite of the sticky heat, I knew: I was on the western bank. The sun was halfway up the sky. It was New Year's Day, and I was still alive. And I was all alone.
The black current had taken me and squeezed me through its substance—and its substance likewise through me—and then discarded me. I had been washed up on the far shore. Borne here by some giant fish of the depths, perhaps; a fish commissioned to carry me. . . .
My first irrational thought was to try to swim back to the eastern bank. Ignoring all stingers, since there didn't seem to be many hereabouts. Ignoring the black current. Crashing through it regardless. I would wave and shout, and be picked up by some passing vessel. Alternatively I would swim all the way.
I even went so far as to wade into the water, up to my ankles.
This frantic nonsense soon gave way to reality. I contented myself with quickly washing my hands clean of mud, retreated, and thought about my predicament.
Eventually, I decided that my only hope was to walk to the area opposite Verrino, where Capsi had first signalled to the watchers up the Spire.
I could search for his diving suit and anti-stinger mask. He must have cached them thereabouts. Maybe I could use them. Maybe the suit and mask were still where he had hidden them. No westerners ever willingly strayed near the water. Except for the riverwitches.
And maybe the Sons of Adam had tortured the whereabouts out of him, and burned his equipment too. . . .
If I signalled with a mirror or a piece of broken glass, surely the Observers would see me from Verrino Spire! Only they, along the whole length of the river, would be looking for a signal from this side. Or if not actually expecting one, patient enough and obsessive enough to look out in any case.
Verrino! My only hope lay there: the only hope that I could tease out of this horror.
And here was I, opposite Tambimatu in the spinach jungle. Verrino was four hundred and forty leagues away—a distance rather more than half the length of the river.
Nevertheless, 1 set out.
Part Three
A WALK TO MANHOME, AND AWAY
I had no idea how far I'd travelled. Or how many days it had taken. Seventy? A hundred? I'd lost count. There was no way to measure the leagues. On this sort of a hell-walk a league seemed an impossibly ambitious unit of measurement. I might have accounted for thirty, or five score. I was hungry, filthy, and fairly crazy.
Inventory for a hell-walk: stout river boots (good for a long journey), a pair of breeches, and a blouse, now tattered. Plus pocket knife and comb and a piece of string. Plus, of course, my wits.
I didn't eat well but at least I did consume enough to fuel me to tramp and thrash my way onward. I ate land-crabs and snakes and grubs, all raw. I ate tubers and fungi and fruit. I suffered stomach aches, and spent one whole day curled up in misery. However, I did remember Lalo's lore of the jungle. This jungle wasn't the same as the Jangali type, at least not at first. Even so, I managed to avoid fatal poisoning. I reminded myself that other creatures happily thrive on a diet of grubs and beetles and live frogs—down on gut level I was an animal too.
The first haul through the spinach puree was the worst; but I still had reserves of fat on me then.
I mentioned my wits as an asset.
In one respect my wits were quite disordered. For wit means knowledge, but what did I know? I knew the east bank from Tambimatu to Umdala. Of the west bank I knew nothing.
Yet the word "nothing" hardly sums up the quality of my ignorance. I hadn't exactly known Jangali or Port Barbra, before I sailed to them. Yet I knew where they were! I knew what The Book of the River said about them.
Here on the west bank The Book of the River meant nothing at all. It was as if the world had changed into another one entirely. And my map of it was blank.
This sheer blankness was the first shock I had to cope with. For the first time in all my life no reference points existed. My only signpost was the river itself; when I could see it, which wasn't all that often. Once or twice when I was able to "camp" near the water at dusk, I spotted a tiny masthead lantern far away: that was all I ever spied by way of distant nightlights. My only real clue to my whereabouts came from the changing nature of the jungle itself: the decline of puree, the rise of occasional rubyvein and gildenwood, then at last halls of jacktrees and hogannies.
Yet the jungle seemed endless and chaotic. When I thought I had passed beyond one type of vegetation, it would reappear. I would be forced to seek the river to reassur
e myself that I wasn't simply stumbling back the way I had already come.
While in another respect: I had no human reference points. I was utterly alone with myself: more so than any prisoner shut up in a room with no windows, because that at least would imply the existence of people outside. I, on the other hand, could go anywhere I wished; and it seemed there would still be no one to speak to or to hear my voice, ever again.
When you're shoving your way through jungle all day long you don't spend a whole lot of time meditating or soul-searching in any very lucid or logical way. Yet your brain does chum over obsessively for hours on end. And what I was thinking to myself (if you can thus dignify the process whereby the milk of thought gets churned into stiff sticky butter which clogs your head up!), was that in all the time since I'd joined the Spry Goose in Pecawar I hadn't really been communicating with people.
Oh, I'd been talking: to Jambi, Klare, Lalo, you name it. I hadn't related, though. I'd been detached. I'd been viewing myself as a character in a tableau.
Here's Yaleen at Spanglestream, admiring the phosphorescent water! Here she is at Croakers' Bayou: behold the swamps and stilt- trees! And here she is shinning up a tree in Jangali. . . .
Even when I rescued Marcialla from that trapeze, I'd been a sort of actor or emblem of a person, like someone pictured on a fortune card.
So it seemed to my churning brain.
I tried to count the number of conversations I could remember in any detail from the previous few months, compared with gabbier days of yore. This might be a more rewarding pursuit than trying to reckon leagues.
It wasn't. There weren't all that many.
If I can put it this way, borrowing from those critics writing in the Ajelobo newspapers, what I'd been living all that time had been narrative rather than dialogue. I'd made myself into something of a third person, so that what happened to her didn't fully affect me. I hadn't realized this, any more than I'd noticed until Ajelobo that I'd been doing without sex for months.
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