Watson, Ian - Black Current 01

by The Book Of The River (v1. 1)

  "Damn it," I gasped. "This is grief! Don't you understand? How many of us have ever known such grief before?"

  "Congratulations, Yaleen. You're the bringer of grief." How bitter Tamath sounded.

  And so the Blue Guitar continued onwards towards my tryst with the head of the worm; while three hundred leagues distant, a war had begun.

  Part Four

  THE WORM'S HEAD

  For a while I'd been hearing a twanging sound. At first it was like singing in my ears. As the hour of our rendezvous drew closer, the noise grew louder; though never so loud that it could have been heard from the shore, I don't suppose, unless you placed your ear directly on the water.

  It was the sound of a single enormous chord being strummed; it was the hum of the current winding itself back elastically towards the Far Precipices.

  The night sky was two-thirds full of stars; the rest was cloud. With our lanterns doused and our eyes adjusted to the darkness, visibility was about fifteen hundred spans.

  Visibility? Ah, that's taking liberties with the word! We would hardly be able to spot details much beyond two hundred spans— and only really when the worm's head sped by at its closest.

  I was about to add, "so long as you had the reflexes of a cat". But we used to have a cat back home in Pecawar. Opinion has it that cats can see things that are invisible to human eyes. Well, it isn't true. Half the time cats are simply looking in the wrong direction. . . .

  When that head rushed past, we would have about fifteen seconds to see it, but only two or three seconds of clear observation. Unless, of course, the head intended to pause and chat with me. And this I rather doubted.

  I was risking lives for a whim—and Tamath was clutching at straws. I already knew that I was going to disappoint her; and anger her more. I was on the point of swallowing my pride and begging her, "Let's call it off. Let's go back." But this would also be dishonest. What, opt out at the last moment? And thus shift the blame? I could tolerate Tamath's hatred (I thought), but not her contempt. Not hers; she didn't deserve to scorn me.

  Ah, my famous self-esteem again! Why should I flay myself for it? But I did. It seemed I couldn't win.

  "Here it comes!" cried Hali from the mizzen top. Hali wouldn't allow anyone but herself aloft. I hoped she was lashed securely. I clung to the rail, peering aft.

  A huge bow-wave tossed the Blue Guitar. Our boat heeled to starboard. Never had a deck sloped so crazily. From amidships came the noise of skidding, crashing and cries.

  And in the midst of this: a dark enormity, a minor hill raced by, as if shouldering our schooner from its slopes. A mound of inky jelly, stiff as muscle . . . For an instant in the starlight I saw its face, but an instant was enough.

  I'd faced a giant croaker in the jungles: a leathery boulder with bulging eyes and a beaky gash of a mouth. I'd seen gargoyles jutting from the gutters of the Donjon in Pleasegod: twisted faces, perhaps modelled on people burnt alive.

  This was worse. The gape of its mouth was a slash through the tissue of the hill, wide enough open to gulp a skiff and crew; a mouth which dripped thick strings of glue. A ledge of a chin scuffed the water below. And above: ridges of bulges and pustules—then two hooded eyes. These eyes were set far apart: long, triangular and white. In them was no expression, no life; as though the salt of the sea had caked them over.

  A face sculpted by a lunatic! More awful that it should have such a face, than have no face at all. Surely the worst thing in the world would be to stray anywhere near that mouth, those eyes. The creature was a great grotesque tadpole: simply a head, with a tail hundreds of leagues long. . . .

  Already it was gone again into the night.

  No sooner had the Blue Guitar righted itself than we were heaving down into the gulf to port. The boat jarred shudderingly as it met a wall of water rushing back to fill the trough. Something smashed to the deck from aloft. I feared for Hali. (Or was it myself I feared for, if it was she who had tumbled down?)

  * * *

  In fact we had snapped our spanker gaff.

  Presently our lanterns were re-lit. Just as well they'd been doused, or we might have caught fire. And presently Tamath counted the cost.

  "So Zemia broke her ankle. And Challi cracked her skull—let's hope it's only concussion. Then there's the spanker gaff—"

  "Maybe the wood was rotten inside." It probably was, but why didn't I keep my big mouth shut?

  Tamath rounded on me. "Don't you dare speak of anything on my boat being rotten! Unless it's yourself!"

  A whimper of pain mounted to a sudden shriek; Zemia's ankle was being set.

  "I'm sorry they got hurt," I said. "Truly sorry."

  "Are you indeed? That's very small beer when people are being hacked to pieces in Verrino! So what did you learn, Yaleen?"

  What had I learned, indeed? Once again the image of a tadpole came to me. The huge head, the inordinately long tail.

  "I think . . . maybe it's about to change. Like, yes, like a tadpole. Which has no further use for its tail."

  "You think," she mocked. "And of course by sheer coincidence, just when it decides to 'change', those bloody Sons decide to attack us."

  To this, I had no answer.

  "Well, what wise thoughts did it communicate?"

  "None," I had to admit.

  "None," she sneered.

  "Mind you, last time it spoke I was right inside its body."

  "So maybe this time we ought to have tossed you overboard, with a line attached! As bait for the worm's brain." And away she stalked.

  We spent the remainder of that night in midstream on deep anchor. This was the first time any boat had anchored quite so far out; but our hooks caught on the riverbed with a link of chain to spare. I lay in my bunk during those dark hours like an unhappy, chilly plank. I was sure that I didn't sleep a wink; though I somehow found myself waking later on to the light of dawn.

  When we were hoisting sail that morning, a signal flashed that the worm's head had passed Tambimatu at seven o'clock. . . .

  * * *

  The Blue Guitar headed back to Jangali, where the two crewwomen who had deserted slipped back on board again before the day was out. In time for supper, to be exact. Tamath said nothing to them about their absence, and pretended not to notice.

  But neither did she broadcast her opinion that it was I who was responsible for the invasion—otherwise the mood might have turned really ugly. As it was, I only had Boatswain Hali's sullen enmity to contend with. And Tamath's controlled hatred. And some sour looks from other women, who took Zemia's injury personally. Challi had woken up with nothing worse than a headache; and she wasn't the sort to harbour a grudge.

  Incidentally, the spanker gaff had been a bit rotten at the point where it snapped. It ought to have been replaced, not held together with paint.

  Much happened during the next few days, though to begin with little of it happened in Jangali. We learned of events thanks to signals from Tambimatu, and from points north to the Spire at Verrino.

  (What did occur in Jangali was: anxious crowds gathering on the quay, flurries of panic, rumour rampant, and a besieging of boats every time a signal tower flashed—since shorelubbers couldn't read the signals. The quaymistress soon appointed a herald to proclaim newly-logged messages; and then to pin up the texts on a board in the market place. I don't know that this did a great deal to restore daily business to normal.)

  From Tambimatu we learned that the worm's head had ended up jammed in that rocky arch below the Precipices. The head now occupied that point of exit and entry like some ghastly gateway, some portal of black flesh—with its drooling mouth agape, its white eyes staring blindly. The guild had sent the ketch with no name to inspect; thus the crew reported.

  Maybe the worm's head had grown in size during the millennia since it first emerged, and now it was too large to slip back inside the mountain. Maybe the bowels of the mountain were already packed solid with its body, leaving no more space within.

  Whethe
r it was still alive, or dead and slowly corrupting, who could tell?

  From Verrino we learned that the Spire was still in friendly hands. What the Observers saw from their vantage point obviously disinclined them to throw in their lot with the invaders. They signalled that the Spire could withstand an eight-week siege; longer on starvation rations.

  On the day after the invasion the signal towers north and south of Verrino had both been burnt to the ground; news which scared us all. Why bum something which could be seized and used? Unless the guild signallers had held out, and been burnt along with then- towers. . . .

  Yet in the confusion of that first violent night one yawl had somehow evaded capture and set sail. This yawl took up station upriver. After the towers went up in flames, the yawl could still relay signals from the Spire, southwards. No such facility existed to the north of Verrino, thus all contact was lost with the whole stretch of river from Sarjoy to Umdala. Three whole days passed before a brig set sail from Verrino to bear down upon that yawl. The brig was crewed by women, but ineptly so—at least until one of the women was thrown overboard by the men in charge, with her hands and ankles bound. Then the brig's performance improved dramatically. The yawl had to flee upstream; all contact with the Spire was broken.

  During those three days the Observers reported rafts being rowed back to the west, then returning with more armed men. Had the Sons been able, obviously they would have pressed real boats into service at once; but it had taken them till the third day to round up a scratch crew for the yawl. So most of the boat crews must have deserted to hide in the town. It might have been even wiser to scatter far inland—though I don't know that this would have been my first instinct, or any riverwoman's; and soon, of course, the chance was gone.

  From aloft the Observers spied murders, and rapes by the raggy soldiery.

  But then men wearing robes arrived from the west; Edrick's colleagues, and maybe the man himself. Vicious incidents tailed off quickly, in full view at least. Corpses were piled and burnt. Looting ceased. Cordons and roadblocks were set up. Patrols prowled the streets, enforcing order. Perhaps the western warleaders deliberately let their soldiers storm around to begin with, to terrorize the town, so that the people of Verrino would feel grateful for the contrast later on. Or maybe the leaders hadn't risked crossing over till the terrain was secure. By the time we lost touch with Verrino, at any rate, an uneasy calm reigned. As yet, the Sons hadn't piled faggots to bum people alive individually. . . .

  From Pecawar, dear Pecawar, word continued to flow that all was well. From Gangee and the other towns, likewise. In each a militia was now being hastily raised, though how effective these might prove I could hardly judge by the example of Jangali. Jangali had always boasted an athletic, spirited, tough guild in its junglejacks. Before long, teams of 'jacks were marching about Jangali armed with machetes, axes and bill-hooks. No doubt this was fine for morale— but good for what else? There was only wild jungle opposite, and for long leagues northward.

  Meanwhile, leaders of the jungle guild and our own river guild conferred for days on end about what to do. Coded messages were flashed, as well as plain—shorelubbers noticed no difference. I began to worry that Marti had been all too right about the absence of authority.

  But then, ten days after the invasion of Verrino, a tight-lipped Tamath instructed me to accompany her to a meeting at the hall of the jungle guild.

  The Jay-Jay Hall, as it was known locally, was a massive wooden edifice on the edge of the new town: a real temple of tree-trunks roofed by great beams and naked rafters, with clerestory windows for light and air. Entering the Hall was like boarding a great land-ship, largely devoted to an empty hold. The principal chamber contained no furniture at all, as though it was an insult to giant trees to trim them into tiny chairs. Instead, everyone sat on tasselled cushions arrayed on the waxed plank floor—and you'd better be sure to leave your boots in the lobby.

  I was seated cross-legged beside Tamath. Twenty 'jacks and riverwomen were present in all; and before very long a 'jack dressed in the typical baggy trousers and scarlet jerkin, and sporting braggartly black moustaches, was asking:

  "And why should Jangali be invaded soon? Tell me that! If I was a westerner, sod his guts, first I'd secure Verrino. Wrap it up tight. Rule the place till the people knew nothing else. After a year or two I'd pick off Sarjoy, then Aladalia, as leisurely as can be. Sew them up too. Where's the hurry? It's us who are in the mess, with our trade routes cut in half. We're wasting our time marching round the town with axes on our shoulders, that should be lopping trees."

  A boatmistress said, "Well, I’d hurry. Because the current might come back!"

  "Come back? Why should your mascot come back? You're crying for the moon."

  I'd sometimes wondered what a moon must look like. A ball of rock floating above the clouds? A kind of cold sun? The jibe was insulting.

  "I hope you aren't suggesting that women have become like children suddenly. To operate our trade routes you need fully experienced—"

  "Persons. Male or female. And s'pose those Sons send boats to raid, like pirates in some Ajelobo romance, who'll be best to fight them off? Those as knows sails and needles? Or those who know axes?"

  "Mister, it takes time to learn the ropes."

  "And maybe we've got time. Five or ten years."

  Another junglejack spoke up. This man was older, with a birthmark—a squashed cherry—on his cheek.

  "You riverwomen certainly need to buck your boat crews up with those of the axe, as my friend says. A woman's no match for a hefty man in most fights. But there's danger in hanging back from the fight too long. We might find ourselves stuck in mid-air with no momentum. We simply can't let those Sons pour thousands of soldiers over the river. And I'll tell you why. Judging from what that stupid snitch of a girl said, those westerners are a lot poorer than us materially. Now they'll have heaps of our own goods to use against us. No matter how much they mess up the places they capture, they'll only get richer and stronger."

  So the river guild—or Tamath—had already told the jungle guild about my travels. . . .

  I was incensed; I spoke without thinking. "That stupid snitch is sitting right here!" I said loudly. I only realized after I'd let this out of the bag that I must have been present for a reason: as a card for our guild to play. But what card could I be?

  There were a few intakes of breath. Men's eyes bored holes in me. Women looked embarrassed. Tamath snarled softly, "Shut it!"

  "Okay, okay," I muttered.

  "Well, well!" declared Moustache. "I'd say the river guild owes us one for that. Why's she here? So that we can send her up a jungle giant without a safety line? Or spit her on a spine-tree? Or stick her on a bonfire? Then both guilds shake hands afterwards?" His loud voice sounded more threatening than perhaps he meant it to, I had to remind myself.

  Surely this wasn't the card that Tamath hoped to play? To toss me up into the treetops as a way of repairing inter-guild relations?

  "We don't quite go in for that kind of thing/' Moustache went on acidly. "You misunderstand our little annual festival."

  "Nothing of the sort was in our minds," protested Tamath. "We can discuss her later on." She addressed the man with the birthmark: "Sir, we agree with you that time isn't our friend. And when I say 'our', I include everyone living on the east bank—man or woman, from Jangali to Gangee. So therefore. . . ." And she glanced at the quaymistress of Jangali, a plump silver-haired woman named Poula.

  "So therefore," continued Poula smoothly, "we must urge the recapture of Verrino as soon as possible. How may this be accomplished? First, we should restore communications with the towns of the north so that we can co-ordinate efforts. We should build balloons to carry couriers over the occupied zone—and spy on it. This can be done."

  A 'jack whistled. "Can it, just?"

  "We think so. There'll need to be tests."

  "And lightweight couriers! Now I see where the girl fits in."

 
Poula ignored this. "Next, we need weapons which can match those pistols of the Sons. Guineamoy will have to manufacture these. Therefore Guineamoy must be strongly defended. The Sons might attack Guineamoy next."

  "Knowing about its workshops, as they do." Moustache glared at me.

  "Oh, a fool could tell from all the smoke!" said Poula.

  "Really? Then why didn't the Sons attack Guineamoy to begin with? Why Verrino?"

  Maybe the answer to that was that Doctor Edrick had wanted some decent spectacles ... I suppressed this flippant thought.

  "Three reasons. Guineamoy must have seemed our strongest town. They may not have known quite what they were up against."

  "Now they do. And the answer is: not much!"

  "Next, Verrino is close to Manhome South, where those 'Crusaders' might be more influential. Unless we strike back and win, they'll soon be influential everywhere in the west. Finally, the Sons had a convenient launching place at Minestead. So now Guineamoy must be defended." Poula looked round the meeting. "Defended by whom?" she asked rhetorically. "And who will recapture Verrino with the weapons made in Guineamoy? Success in this enterprise requires a stout team who can lay off their ordinary guild work for weeks without disrupting essential supplies such as foodstuffs. . .

  "In a word, the junglejacks. Women 'jacks can carry on jungle guild business in the meantime, on a trimmed-down basis."

  Moustache stared at Poula. "So what you're proposing is that we prune our own guild down to the women members—and turn the other ninety-odd per cent of us into your army!"

  "It'll be everyone’s army: the army of the east. But an army, yes. Meanwhile, riverwomen will be busy ferrying fighters and weapons. Don't worry, we'll be doing our bit."

  "Aye, by shipping us off to a foreign town. Men don't go gadding about like your lot, with a lover in every port. Some would say: what's Guineamoy to us that we should quit our homes, leaving Jangali unguarded? Some might say we could survive quite well on our own, from the Bayou down to Tambimatu."