Silence in the cabin, for a while. If a Tamath had said such things, perhaps there would have been uproar. But then, she wouldn't have.
"Talking of practicalities," said I, "what about Doctor Edrick's scheme for poisoning the current?"
"May it fail," said Nelliam tightly. "May he thrash around for ten years, never finding what he seeks. May he fall between those two stools, of Conserving and Crusading, and get squashed. Really there's nothing we can do about it."
"We could tell everybody, from Umdala to Tambimatu. Put people on their guard. Tell them about the west."
"Why? So that everybody lives in a state of permanent anxiety? So that any malcontents have a lever against us?" Nelliam leaned towards me. "So that your fame spreads far and wide?" Yet her tone was whimsical rather than mafic lous.
Shortly afterwards the conclave began to wind up. I was left with the odd sense of being high in the councils of the land—yet these councils making little difference. The guild could trim our sails a bit; but could it ever actually alter course? On a long and rather straight river which leads forever from A to B is there even any concept of altering course? Any need to?
After I was dismissed, the 'mistresses must indeed have come up with some last-minute practical conclusions: about the building of better signal stations which could double as spy towers (if equipped with Observer-style telescopes). Some sort of consensus must have gelled, since I was to see the results before too long. Yet basically I felt enormously let down. Once again. First by the current, now by my guild. . . .
When I came to think of it more coolly, what actually could be done? On any scale corresponding to the size of the problem? Reacting prematurely might make it a problem. Once you identify something as a problem, it tends suddenly to get worse.
One of the last things said before I was dismissed came from Tamath:
"Mumbo-jumbo or not," and here she glanced at Nelliam, "may the black current show us our true course." Her look was respectful —but there was a slight edge of, shall we say, ambition in her voice. She was a handsome, engaging woman, as I say. She must have worked hard, and pleased people. And all the while, perhaps, a little frightened of doing the wrong thing—while needing to speak out, proffer her opinion, make decisive choices. She would be admired for it, and she would never quite dare believe it herself.
"To be sure," conceded Nelliam. "Pardon my impieties. Blame them on the crotchets of an old lady. I was just trying to make a point."
'May the current show us our course. . . .' Tamath had no idea how soon and how drastically the current would show us something!
Oh yes. One other final thing was that I was assigned a berth and duties on board Tamath's own command, the Blue Guitar, now bound for southern waters.
As so I would continue my life as a riverwoman. Just as we would all continue our lives.
For a while.
And so I did. And so did we all—for the next half year, till New Year's Day came round again, anniversary of my awakening washed up on a strange shore
This particular new year found me on no strange shore. The Blue Guitar was tied up at the stone docks of Jangali. . . .
On New Year's Eve I had walked out through the old town to visit Lalo and Kish, whom I hadn't seen for over a year. The young couple ought to have moved out of the parental home into a place of their own, though it was to that tree-house that I went first, to enquire.
Lalo's mum turned out to be a portly swarthy woman whose hair was a mass of wiry black wool and combs and strings of agate beads.
She directed me in the usual emphatic Jangali style, then added, "If you'll hang on a mo, I'll take you myself. I'm babysitting."
"Baby?" I suppose I gaped. "But how—?"
"Why, in the usual way, dear!" Her laugh boomed out. "How else?"
"I guess it's a while since I saw them."
"Best to get your brood hatched early, I always say! Then all that bother won't wear you out in your prime. They'll have three babies, I think. The first one's a darling little boy, so the next should rightly be a big strapping girl."
I wondered whether Kish would ever learn to raise his voice as loud as hers. . . .
"Has a woman called Jambi visited recently?" I asked on impulse.
"Who?"
So I described Jambi, reminding Mum that she was a friend of Kish's family and that we had both been on the boat which brought Kish and Lalo home.
"Oh, I remember! She did call once. Rootless, gadabout woman! Can't say as I took to her hugely. One shouldn't encourage that kind of thing. It's too unsettling, when a young man's trying to adjust to a new style of life."
Poor Kish. . . .
"I expect you're right," I said.
"Of course I'm right. Now if you'll just wait a mo! There's ever so nice a view from that balcony."
"It really doesn't matter! 1 was only intending to pop in." I slapped my brow theatrically. "Oh dear, now I've remembered something else I had to do!"
Mum scrutinized me. "Have you really? So what name should I mention to my Lalo?"
"None. Don't bother." I retreated. "Obviously they're busy. Anyway, I'm quite a rootless gadabout myself!"
"What a peculiar whimsical way to behave! Well, goodbye," said Mum, and shut the door.
I left.
As I headed back towards the river, I thought of my own mother and father. I still hadn't been back to see them. Yet that was hardly my fault! Tamath's boat had kept me to southern waters since my return—far from Verrino, so that I wouldn't over-excite the Observers, I suppose. We were scheduled to sail downstream "sometime" but I could be fairly sure I wouldn't be permitted to hop boats to any old vessel I liked, for an earlier passage north. Tamath was keeping an eye on me.
I had written a couple of times to my parents—initially from Spanglestream—and had had two letters back. The second had been awaiting me at the quaymistress's poste restante when we docked in Jangali.
Mother's first letter had conveyed a certain air of reproach at my having absented myself for so long without sending word. (Naturally, I hadn't told her that I'd spent some of the time gadding footloose and fancy-free about the western world!)
I detected a degree of anxiety about Capsi, too. (That still required a personal explanation face to face. However, any adequate explanation was so intimately bound up with other events on which I shouldn't enlarge that the problem had only got worse with time.)
All in all, both letters from Pecawar were quite complacent. A child had been bom, of course. A girl. Her name was Narya. By now she was a year and a quarter old. Things were fine at home. Narya was a joy. Her first word had been "wain". It had rained in dusty Pecawar, impressing her.
Maybe my parents were weeping in private, but I doubted it. The keynote was complacency.
And Lalo's mum was militantly complacent.
And guildmistresses were fairly complacent too. Because in their guts, they couldn't imagine anything ever being very different. For them, the extent of foreignness was somewhere distant like Umdala.
Not, I hasten to add, that I thought there was any inherent virtue in striking up acquaintance with the really foreign, the west. Still, the west existed. And it was pulsing with people, whose souls were sick; some of whom at least were hatching plans which had to do with us.
Such thoughts occupied me while I walked back to the Blue Guitar. Then I put them from my mind.
That night a gang of us were planning to hit the Jingle-Jangle for a fine old thrash to celebrate New Year.
Whilst down at Tambimatu a boat with no name would sail out slowly to the mid-stream. Without (thanks be!) any Yaleen on board. . . .
And a jolly night it was indeed. Music, talk and singsongs—as deafening as ever. A lot of joshing, some kissing (and resort to a certain upstairs room for a six-way tangle), even a bit of a brawl, though a half-hearted one. This time no Port Barbra women were skulking about the premises. I collected a hangover, which I nursed through most of the morning in my bunk; as di
d many of us.
At last I just had to empty my bowels. So I dragged myself up. I raided the galley for a bite of eel pie then crept on deck, to lean on the rail and recover.
I decided that I, too, felt complacent.
Partly this was a consequence of the hangover: I had no desire to exert myself. Mainly it was due to being there once again on deck at Jangali dock, just as I'd been once before. It seemed as if nothing essential had changed, after all.
So I lazed about. Had lunch with the other walking wounded. Played several hands of cards, winning a few fins and losing them again. There was desultory talk about mounting a return expedition ashore that night, though no one was overly enthusiastic. The air was a hot muggy blanket. The sun boomed down on the river.
At around two o'clock the tall new signal tower to the north of Jangali began to flash. (Oh yes, there had been little changes.)
Idly I spelled out the message, which was in plain language.
A moment later I was not so idle.
"Tamath!" I screamed. "Boatmistress! Someone tell her to come!"
Minor commotions occurred on other vessels, too, as more people began to notice the flashing and pay heed.
Tamath was by my side in record time, sprinting from her cabin. She too stared. She had missed the start of the signal, but that didn't matter. It was soon being repeated. Briefly Tamath hesitated between dashing to the lookout station where young Melesina—about the only person actually on duty—was copying the signal down. As the message sank in, she stayed by me . . .
The contents?
Urgent alert. Ex Umdala. Repeat onward. Black current withdraws upriver ex sea. Head of current passes Umdala midday. Speed 17 LH. Wake upsets small craft. Head of current size of small hill. Look of giant croaker. River clear where head has passed. No current remains. Umdala endit.
Two hours since that signal had set out! The black current was withdrawing upstream at a rate of seventeen leagues per hour. Soon the "head" would be passing Firelight. A little over an hour later, Melonby.
Maybe something wild and terrible in the ocean had driven it upstream ... I doubted this. The current was winding itself back towards the Far Precipices, like some huge rope being winched in. And on the end of that black rope was the living head which had never been seen, or even guessed at, in all our history! A head the size of a hill!
Tamath called to boatswain Hali (no relation to the Hali of the Sally Argent) to send someone aloft with a spyglass to observe the midstream; Hali climbed the shrouds herself.
"Nothing can possibly have happened at Tambimatu," Tamath muttered to me. "Last night, I mean. Not to provoke this. Or we'd have heard by now. So has your precious Doctor Edrick doctored the current, after all?"
"How do I know? How can a current flow w^-river, Tamath?"
"Ah, its substance is curious." She was quoting the Chapbook of the guild, not telling me anything new. Her voice was singsong. Her eyes looked glazed with shock. "It seems a liquid. Yet it flows within itself, and is one. Like an oily sinew, like a tapeworm."
"A worm with a head, so it seems!"
"It doesn't really flow like water. Waves simply pass along it; it remains."
"Till now it did! Incantations aren't going to help us any, Boatmistress!" I spoke as sharply as a slap on the cheek.
She recoiled, then recovered herself. "No, of course not . . . You're right."
"So is there a brain in its head? And eyes that see? And a mouth that feeds? And speaks? Maybe speaks!"
"Speaks," she repeated dully. "What could it say? Now that anybody can cross the river? Now that anyone can sail? The world's turning upside-down. . . ."
"It told me the world would turn on its hinges, on the day when it moved. Now it's happening. Today. Maybe Edrick didn't start this. Maybe the current decided long ago."
"What's going to happen?"
From the topgallant Hali called, "I can see ripples rushing all along the midstream water. It's moving, all right!" Hali ordered Zemia aloft to take over the watch, and began to climb down.
"What's going to happen, Tamath, is that it'll pass us here in Jangali. Unless it decides to halt halfway."
"If the head displaces enough water to upset small craft . . . then we'd best slacken our moorings ... Or even put out, a hundred spans or so. Hali!" she shouted to the descending boatswain.
"Hang on." I interrupted. "It's withdrawing at seventeen leagues per hour. If it keeps on coming, it won't pass here till. ..." I calculated. "Um, tomorrow, around midnight. Maybe very early, the day after."
"Oh yes, of course . . . Quite right."
"And I want to see it pass," I added. "From close by."
Hali had joined us by now. "Do you just?" Her tone was sarcastic. "We hear and obey. Right, Boatmistress, let's all jump to it and sail the Blue Guitar right out so that Yaleen here can get an eyefull!"
Tamath pursed her lips. "Yaleen has a . . . special . . . reason for wanting to be close. It may well be that we all need her to see what happens . . . Hmm, yes, we'll probably sail."
Hali stared at us incredulously. She didn't know my past history. By the time the Blue Guitar had arrived in Spanglestream for the conclave, six weeks had passed since I'd swum ashore. The waves of gossip had slackened into tiny ripples.
"The crew won't want to get anywhere near that!” Hali protested.
"I'll speak to them. Tomorrow. Or tonight. In a nutshell, Yaleen here has crossed the current twice already. It knows her. She spent many weeks on the west bank. And she got back."
"Oh," said Hali. She looked hurt. Because Tamath hadn't taken her into her confidence earlier. "Oh." If I'd been in Hali's boots, that was about all that I could have found to say.
Hali was deeply hurt; and because of this I could see she was very sore at me.
Tamath turned to me. "Isn't the current at its lowest ebb as the year changes? Surely it should have grown more sluggish with the drug—not less?"
"Yes, the drug would make it sluggish, at first. Then it would speed up." Just as Marcialla had speeded up, rushing frenetically about her cabin . . . "It would go berserk."
Excluded from this exchange by ignorance, Hali looked even more resentful.
As the afternoon wore on, more signals came our way.
Ex Firelight. Head passing. River clear downstream. . . .
Ex Melonby. . . .
We might have stayed up half the night watching for signals— latterly, lantern flashes—spelling the retreat of the head upstream. However, Tamath ordered us all below quite early. The next night would be a long and risky one. She explained why; and stunned the crew with her explanation.
Going on for ten the following night, we were readying the Blue Guitar to sail, working by the light of our own lanterns and those on the dockside.
Dispute had broken out (not least from Hali) as to whether to risk a fine schooner in this enterprise. A little tub would be less of a loss, if loss there was to be. Though equally, a little tub might more easily founder when that living hill rushed by.
Two of our crew had deserted, though Tamath was only willing to consider them as temporarily missing ashore.
And I was in the peculiar ambiguous position of suddenly not being very popular, since I was the reason for this nocturnal jaunt to danger—while at the same time I was something of a miracle. From the way some of my boatsisters spoke, you'd have thought I was personally responsible for the present misconduct of the current.
We cast off. Slowly we sailed out under light canvas, to take up station.
We were about halfway out when, in the darkness to the north, the powerful signal-lantern began to wink. Tamath was loitering near me on the fore-deck. I had been relieved of my ordinary duties; who could say what my extraordinary ones might be?
Urgent alert. Ex Verrino Spire, I spelled.
It was the first time I'd seen such a call-sign. So some accommodation had been reached between the river guild and the Observers. Unless this was a spontaneous message, breaking
into the chain of light.
. . . Repeat onward. Explosion in town. Fire. Screaming. Confusion. Quayside appears under attack. Large rafts landing ex river. From West. Alert all towns: arm with any weapons to defend shore. . . .
Tamath clutched my arm savagely, hurting me. She seemed to imagine her fingertips were pressing words into me.
"It's the Sons," said I, wincing. "They've invaded Verrino. . . ."
Sick at heart, I visualized the Sons of Adam rampaging through that lovely town, where in their eyes every woman was a witch.
"Arm with any weapons" indeed! With knives and needles? With pitchforks and mattocks?
Tamath finally found her voice. "The head can only have passed Verrino fifteen hours ago! How could the West have rafts ready? And men, and weapons? Unless Edrick's plan worked! Unless he did poison the current! Damn you, Yaleen, for this thing you've done. Damn you. You told them how. And you've destroyed our lives!"
And at Verrino quay were berthed real river-going vessels, for the Sons to seize and press into service. . . .
Of a sudden our world was cut in half.
It all seemed so abominably unfair. Only a while ago the whole river and my life had stretched before me, full of tantalizing distant towns, vistas, bright adventures, friends, lovers, boats, dreams. Anything whatever that was good, within the changelessly rich fabric.
It was all over now, forever, before it had really begun. I felt as though a giant hand had abruptly doused the sun and stars, and drained the river dry.
Because I felt so dry, I wept.
"Don't be such a baby!" sneered Tamath. "What way is this to greet your only friend, who's rushing to visit you? You'll need to see straight, to pat the worm's head."
Watson, Ian - Black Current 01 Page 15