Watson, Ian - Black Current 01

by The Book Of The River (v1. 1)

  Instinctively the current lashed out to save itself. And there was madness on the land: a storm of forgetting, a whirlwind of disruption. The worm wasn't quite sure whose fault the mind-disaster was. It suspected that the far intelligence might have tried to extinguish its own experiment upon this world, to break the link with the creature it had woken.

  Some settlers lost less of themselves, some more. All were deeply confused. Two groups survived: one on the west bank, where the far intelligence was remembered, though chaotically; another on the east bank, where its origin was quite forgotten.

  Down succeeding centuries, as the current established a rapport with Those of the Flow, in the east, and drank the spirits of the river-dead, it began at last to know.

  Thus spoke the zombi. His name, he added in an afterthought, was Raf; though he seemed to attach little significance to it, as if it had been centuries since he last used it.

  And now events were on the move.

  "Poisoned?" Raf chuckled. By now he behaved more naturally, though he wasn't exactly my notion of convivial. "Not on your sweet life! The current got just the ingredient it needed dumped into it. The rennet, to curdle the milk of its mind. To thicken it, enrich it. It had been trying to influence those cult-women inland from Port Barbra, but they were hard to get hold of. . . ."

  "What? Say that again!"

  Credence, boatswain of the Spry Goose, hadn't been so hard to get hold of! Suddenly that whole episode of the Junglejack Festival took on a startling new perspective—and I found myself pitying Credence. She had been manipulated in her beliefs, used as a tool—to be discarded when she couldn't prise open Marcialla's cabin door. Credence mustn't entirely have known why she was conspiring; otherwise she might have proved more effective. Hell, who was I kidding? With Marcialla unpersuaded and marooned up a tree, it was only by a hair's breadth of bad luck—known as Yaleen—that Credence failed.

  Raf looked dreamy. "Ah, I have been one of those cult-women. She fled from her coven to sail the river . . . She could see how young they all died, and looking so old! Oh, I've known the Time-stop, and the Timespeed . . . But never mind about it now."

  Never mind? In one sense Credence hadn't failed at all. All unwittingly, she had set me up as her successor.

  And this, Raf was only too happy to confirm. For the second time within a few seconds my perspective on events swam inside-out.

  "You came along just at the right time," he said. "The current read you. You proved better. More economical! You solved another problem, besides: how to lure those Sons of the God-Mind closer, so that the current could drink enough dead Kas to really get to know them —and taste and test the link to that far puissance. . . ."

  "Hang on! Do you mean to say the current provoked this war? Just so that Westerners would get killed, and it could harvest some of them?"

  "That is putting it a bit crudely."

  "How can it harvest dead Sons now it has quit the battlefield?"

  "Never fear! After a while it will return downstream. It can judge the progress of the war by the Kas of newly dead riverwomen. Since they’re in tune, they still die into it."

  "And am I supposed to applaud this clever scheme? Which brings agony and death!" If I'd thought Doctor Edrick was unscrupulous, then surely here was his match!

  "Well, it wants to become a God, you see."

  "A . . . God?"

  Raf glanced around. I did, too . . . and my blood chilled. Surely the cavern walls had crept closer while we were talking? Surely the roof was lower than it had been a while before?

  "The Sons would have waged war in any case," Raf said reasonably. "Sooner or later they would have found a means. In fifty years or a hundred. The time isn't important."

  "It is, to anybody who's alive!"

  This part of the cavern definitely was shrinking. The fronds sprouting out of the ground-mist were getting agitated.

  "No, it isn't important! Not when you can live a host of other lives hereafter. Nobody who is taken into the Ka-store regrets it. And remember, when the current becomes a God, all those Kas will be part of that God too."

  "According to you."

  "You'll find out soon enough, Yaleen. The current is pregnant with itself—"

  "Uh?"

  "I'll rephrase that: soon the current will give birth—to something greater than itself. And it feels it should be fertilized—"

  "For crying out, doesn't it know? Who ever heard of getting fertilized after getting pregnant?"

  "I don't mean literally fertilized. It senses that it needs the intimate presence of a living person during the change. Here is the womb; you are the man-seed."

  The womb. And right now the womb was undergoing a contraction. . . .

  "I'm a woman, you dumb corpse!"

  "Please! The current is the Flow; you are the stone that shapes the Flow. You are the agent who helps it change, without changing yourself. It'll keep you in dream-life while it broods around you."

  "It brooded round me twice already! And crept and crawled inside me. This is getting to be a habit."

  "Ah, but this time—"

  "Third time lucky?"

  "This time you will be a legend, Yaleen. When you finally walk out of its mouth, salvation will be at hand."

  "What if I don't want to be a legend?"

  Frankly I didn't think the current had a chicken's idea what it was doing. If it had, I didn't think much of the plan. Not when the worm was content to start a war to get its way. Even if it did immortalize assorted fallen victims.

  Those walls!

  That roof!

  "Look, I don't want to sound abrupt, but the place is caving in. Goodbye!" I turned and quickfooted it over the stepping stones towards the tunnel mouth. Fronds writhed up over the warts ahead to block my way.

  "Stop!" cried Raf. "The mouth's closed!"

  I did stop. "What?"

  "The mouth has shut."

  Maybe I shouldn't have paused. Fronds were questing for my ankles now. I kicked at them. Maybe the zombi was lying?

  "There are such rewards, Yaleen! Access to all the lives that women have lived!"

  And maybe if I did fight my way out, with my mission unaccomplished, Maranda and Sparki and Laudia would toss me back inside . . . While I hesitated, the ceiling slumped a little closer. Obviously the cavern was a hole in the Worm's body, a big bubble it had blown in itself within some vaster subterranean space.

  Kindly consider the absurd horror and lunacy of this moment. Outside, the world was in chaos. A giant tadpole wanted to make love to me, or something. And the roof was falling on my head. In such a moment, what could save a girl but a sense of humour? (Or a sense of rage—somehow rage didn't seem a useful reaction at this point.) I began to laugh. I doubled up. I creased myself.

  "What's wrong?" cried Raf anxiously.

  "Oh nothing ... I” With an effort I controlled myself. "It's so bloody funny, this business of becoming a God! How lucky cats and dogs are, never having to try! Just look at it: this collapsing Ka- theodral of a womb ... a zombi for a guide . . . the spirits of the dead spun in a yam . . . barrels of minced fungus gotten by devious guile ... all in the guts of a worm ... a war thrown in! And at the end of the tunnel, what: power and visions? Life is quite absurd!"

  "But the universe itself is paradoxical," called Raf brightly. "Existence is. I mean, why should anything exist at all? So maybe true knowledge and absurdity are twins. Maybe the one is the key to the—"

  "Oh, shut up!"

  Already the wart-stones beyond had all vanished under writhing fronds; where I stood was similarly infested.

  "I'm coming back, damn it!" Swiftly the fronds at my feet shrank away.

  We set off promptly for the far end of the cavern. Now that I was on the move in the desired direction, the shrinkage back at the island end appeared to have stopped.

  So off I trod to confront my destiny, and the Worm's destiny, and the world's; loaded down with useless bottles of fresh air; sporting a jewelled ring, w
ith the power only of cutting rope; and guided by a hairless animated corpse ... As I followed Raf's lead along those wart-stones, I decided that Doctor Edrick and his cronies would never get anywhere with their quest for knowledge. They were far toe serious about it. The real and the true could only be seized in a laugh, a laugh which would rattle the stars.

  And the trouble was, at the same time it all mattered; mattered intensely.

  Still, I was determined not to be too tense. It's no good tensing up for love, eh? And our worm had decided to love me. Somehow.

  I was in the midst of finding out how to be mad and sane simultaneously. I hoped the Worm could perform the same balancing trick Then maybe it would graduate into a God. . . .

  I hadn't known what to expect. A mound of jelly shot through with sparks? A pool, depth-full of flickering darting starlight: Kas held in suspension?

  What we arrived at finally, somewhere in the azure fog, was a fountain-basin: a phosphorescent powder-blue bowl some nine or ten spans across, bubbling with denser violet fog like foamy suds.

  A coldly boiling cauldron. A chalice of flesh. A bathtub.

  Of course all the "architecture" hereabouts had to be a purely temporary affair. This chalice, or bath of suds, had been laid on specially for me. I had no idea what the Art-store might look like the rest of the time. Perhaps like nothing at all.

  "You climb in," advised my friendly zombi. "You lie down."

  The basin bore a certain resemblance, also, to an enormous sphincter muscle. "It won't close up on me, will it?"

  "It won't eat you—never fear!"

  Why did people say things like "never fear" when that's just what anyone in their right mind ought to be doing?

  "Perhaps I could assist you with those things on your back?" Raf offered gallantly. "They look cumbrous to lie on."

  "Ah, so comfort does come into this! That's nice to know."

  With a certain amount of fumbling, Raf managed to detach the air bottles. He had no such luck with the locked belt and tail of rope.

  So I climbed aboard that basin. As I did so, a sigh of satisfaction seemed to sough through the cavern. I lay down in the violet fog; at once I felt myself departing, into a different kind of place . . .

  And I enter the Art-store. . . .

  I'm Lalia, a woman of Gangee, thirty years old, dark and tall and strong.

  I'm borne along within her life. A stick floating downstream, I go where the water wills; unlike a fish, which can turn and oppose the stream. . . .

  I'm a stowaway in her. I wear her like a glove. I see what she sees, feel what she feels, speak what she says, go where she walks. I regard Gangee not as a dingy hole but as home, a drumskin of familiar beats.

  She, the Lalia who is experiencing her life unfolding, remains unaware of me. Yet a later, more complete Lalia seems to know me, and nod in recognition. My life as Lalia isn't continuous. I experience her in spurts, like a gashed artery from which her lifeblood springs. Several days, then a skip forward.

  Men of Gangee are planning an expedition to cross the desert. By investing in supplies the river guild has bought me a place on this expedition as their observer. Maybe another river flows somewhere beyond the sands?

  Why, this must be hundreds of years ago! Yet equally it's now: the urgent present moment, the moment which matters above all others.

  Which matters most . . . and least. The present moment, the moment you're living through, is often rushed away impatiently for the benefit of future moments. Or maybe you stand quite still and try to halt time, to savour the present moment to the full; but what you're really saying to yourself is: "Look! Concentrate! I'm here now at this point in space and time. I hereby fix this moment in memory forever—so that I'll understand and treasure the meaning of it . . . in another hour, another week, another year. Not now; but then." Only when a moment lapses and is gone, can it be really known. Thus the moment is everything, and nothing too.

  Yet since I, Lalia, am living each present moment ordinarily, but also as part of my whole completed self, this treachery of time is healed now. Each instant becomes radiant and luminous. Every act and word is a dewdrop and a diamond.

  This is the joy of the /Ta-store; it could also be the horror, if the moment was evil and agonizing. But even horror is outshone, when the light emerging from each moment is so bright that pain is blinded.

  We march inland from Gangee to the verge of the desert, accompanied by a gang of porters laden with supplies, We set up base camp in the dusty outback beside a tree-fringed pool, the last well. Beyond, there's only a plain of fine gravel horizoned by distant dunes.

  We have planned well. Taking turns, we lead teams of porters far out into the Dry to lay down caches of food and waterskins filled from the pool. The first such sortie takes a couple of days, to go one day's march and return. The second sortie penetrates twice as far. And so on. In this way we scout a full week's journey into those far dunes, preparing the way, always returning to base. These preparations occupy several weeks and limber us up marvellously.

  Then we dismiss all our porters and set out alone to cross the Dry. Six of us: five men, and myself.

  Thanks to our preliminary forays, the first week's journey is easy —even though the ridge-dunes we have to cross are soft underfoot and complexly interlinked. We find all our caches without any fuss. Dimes may creep, but not that quickly; and only gentle breezes blow. It's the calmest time of year, the Lull. The river, of course, is breezier even during the Lull, but we're far away from it. We have six weeks before the winds blow strong again.

  A sea of star-dunes succeeds the ridge-dunes; we can thread our way through these at speed. On scattered rocky outcrops, landmarks in the arid ocean, we stash food and drink for our return, further lightening our loads.

  And I fall in love with one of the explorers, Josep. Likewise, he with me. But this is wrong. He's a man of my own home town. We could only have fallen in love by being so far removed from the breath of the river. By being so isolated.

  Isolated! Yet always we are in such close proximity to four other Gangee men (who mustn't guess; yet do) that we can do nothing at all about our love. This is both a torment and a blessing. We bum with frustration and yearning and dread, as surely as we bum in the heat by day. To me Josep seems uniquely brave and beautiful.

  Three weeks inland; and still no change in the dearth and death of the landscape. Only minerals grow here.

  Impasse: the other four want to return while there's time. But Josep cannot bear to fail—though this is one of those enterprises where even to have attempted it is a sort of success. Josep wants to journey at least a fraction as far as / have travelled, on the river; but in his own direction. Only such a one could I love, who mirrors me.

  After a parched conference, it's decided that three will stay here, camped in a jumble of crystal-crusted rocks in a shattered region of shale. Three will scout onward: Josep, me, and Hark.

  A day later Hark decides that we're marching to our deaths. And maybe we are. Maybe my bones will lie down locked with Josep's bones upon a bed of sand.

  Hark and Josep quarrel; not violently but in a softly hateful way. Hark acts as though Josep is betraying the spirit of our expedition, by pressing on with it. Hark can't bear to be within the aura of our love, which grows fiercer the more it is prevented.

  He leaves us early in the morning to retrace his steps to where we left the others. When he reaches them, they will stay two more days, then depart, taking all the food and water with them; that's the threat. The promise.

  As soon as Hark has gone, Josep and I set out for the nowhere beyond nowhere. We have just one more day, one night.

  How defiantly we spend that night! It seems as though the entire purpose of our expedition, all those weeks of preparation, all the porters and supplies, is simply for us to make love. Will we return and report, "Oh yes, we discovered something—we found each other"?

  Yet at sunrise, when we stir again in one another's arms, the suspicion dawns
on me that Josep is making love not to a woman, but to the desert itself—to this naked emptiness far from the river where no codes of river life apply. My breasts are as star-dimes, my flanks a dune-slope under his sliding fingers. Between my thighs is the well of liquid we have not found. I'm the desert made flesh. Only thus can he master it; he who must master something.

  That day we return in silence to the place where we parted from Hark. That night, when we unroll our blankets on the sand, Josep is impotent—because he is withdrawing from the desert now. Although he clutches me cruelly and forcingly, in a way I have never known a man act before, he achieves nothing. At last he turns aside in an agony of shame, so that I have to comfort him; and this is worse, for he weeps like a child.

  In the morning when I wake his tears are still falling on my face. It feels that way. Actually stray raindrops are spitting down on my skin from a solitary cloud.

  Off to the west, an impossibly dark mass of clouds bunches low, dispensing rain; dirty sheets of water drench down. Within an hour the clouds have fled, the sky is clear.

  And when finally we reach the jumble and the shale, first we find one drowned corpse then another then a third. The freak flood has vanished; the desert is parched dry again. Waterskins have been washed away and ripped by shale, so that there's only a slop of liquid left in those we recover. We find a fourth corpse, Hark's, his skin already turning to leather.

  "You brought the river here!" Josep screams at me insanely.

  Thankfully my life as Lalia jerks forward at this point, lurching towards its close.

  A few days later, somewhere further west amidst star-dimes, Josep falls down dying of thirst. As I am dying too. . . .

  And for a moment I believe that a miracle has happened, and that actually I have commanded the river and it has come to pour down my swollen throat and slake my terrible thirst!

  But I'm dead; and the black current has received its daughter into it from afar. As I soon discover. I've come home—to myself at last; and it's this which illuminates all other earlier moments of my life . . .

  I'm Chama, a teenager of Melonby, eager to join the riverguild in another year or two.