Right now it's the cruellest winter in memory. The river has frozen over. Boats are locked at their moorings, with ropes and spars crusted by frost just like the decorations on iced nameday cakes. No river traffic moves.
With my best friend Pol I venture on to the ice, skating and skidding, and scuffing up the dust of snow in lines and arcs. (It's so cold, the snow is dusty not moist.) I carve my name upon the river for all to see.
Some of those who see are boys, who begin to dare each other, for it seems as if the river has become as safe and solid as a road. They admire me; resent me. They're scared, and proud. In the bitter calm cold they grow hot-headed, jeering and teasing, us and each other. Presently the boldest and most foolish of the boys steps on to the ice himself, and skids along beside us.
"You'll have to walk for a wife now!" warns Pol. "You've used up your one go."
"Nonsense! I'm not on the river, I'm on ice—on top of it! I bet you could cross all the way to the other side!"
"Oh no, you couldn't. The ice'll be thin in the middle. Maybe no ice at all."
"Wheee!" He runs, and crouches into a skid. He tumbles and pratfalls all along the ice. Scrambling up, he slides back to the bank and hops ashore. "Come on, you lot!"
"No fear!"
"Not likely!"
"Chickens," he sneers, and jumps back to his ice-sport. Leaps on the ice a second time.
"Oh, I'm a river-boy," he sings. (Of course, the real song is about a river -girl) "My boat is quite a toy! She brings me heaps of joy—!" (He's just making up the words, mocking them.)
Suddenly he screams: "Destroy! De-ssss-troy—!"
He windmills his arms wildly. He begins to race. Out, out. . . .
We all watch, numbstruck. Soon he's hundreds, a thousand spans away. In his green coat he's a leaf blowing over the ice. Then he's no more than a sprig of grass. Finally, far away, he vanishes. The faintest twang sings through my feet. The ice has cracked, out there.
And a death has happened, because I wrote my name on the river.
I'll not feel guilty! Of his death I am innocent!
I'm a boatswain of Firelight, a happy and fiercely passionate woman. How can she be both at once? She is. I know; I'm her. She bums like the dancing jets of flaming gas in the caldera outside the town; yet inside she is sunned by her passions, not consumed or exploded. . . .
I'm a multitude of lives, all linked, reflecting into one another. All those vistas and ventures I ever dreamed of as a little girl—and was robbed of so abruptly—just as suddenly are mine; to overflowing. . . .
I am Nelliam, aged guildmistress. . . .
Nelliam? Guildmistress from Gangee? But how—?
I'm in Verrino, residing with the quaymistress. I've been here for weeks, engaged in negotiations with the Observers. Perhaps I'm not the best choice of intermediary, since I can't possibly climb that wretched Spire in person . . . But I meet a young man on neutral ground, usually one of the many wine-arbours. He has coppery skin, lustrous eyes and a pert little nose. If I were only forty years younger, and less sadly wise than I am now. . . .
(My own heart lurches—for of course, the young man is Hasso, my erstwhile one-night lover, he who plucked the first flower of my flesh.)
From another point of view, that of someone who can look back down many thousands of days of life, maybe I'm the best person for the job. But only maybe.
So I set my sails to the task, applying gentle persuasion, as though I'm out to seduce this young man; and only occasionally do I lose patience with him.
Much has been agreed in principle, and even put into practice; but now I want those panoramas of the west bank which the Observers have been collecting and hoarding for a hundred years. I want these sent to Ajelobo, there to be engraved by craftsmen—and printed in a gazetteer which our own signallers can emend by pen.
All of Yaleen's information will be printed in this gazetteer as well. It will be a second Book of the River, a ghost guide to a world hitherto unknown. Or maybe I should describe it as a second Chapbook, since its distribution will be strictly limited. No additional, unofficial copies will sneak out; of that I can be sure. Those Ajelobo publishers depend on us to freight their wares.
Tonight is the night before New Year's Eve, and the wine-arbour is lit by fairy candles. The arbour isn't heavily patronized this evening; most people are saving themselves up for the morrow. A cou- pie of riverwomen natter together. A lone old man broods. Two lovers—husband and wife of a few week's vintage, by the look of them—whisper in a nook.
Apart from these, only Hasso and I. Age wooing youth—except that Hasso is a little too experienced, suave and cautious. Personally I could do with an early night. No rest for the wicked, though.
"What guarantees can you offer?" he's asking.
"Our word of honour," I repeat. "Your panoramas will be perfectly safe. We just want to borrow them. We'll return them inside a year. It'll take as long as that."
Lights flicker softly around us. There should be music to serenade us. But no; music would lull me to sleep.
"Okay, I believe you. I'll consult. . . ."
We agree to meet again in this same arbour on the night after New Year's Day; it should again be quiet, in the aftermath of all the parties and revels.
But come that night in the New Year, the arbour isn't quiet at all. It's packed and noisy. Because the head of the black current has passed Verrino. Now everyone is telling everyone else about it, offering explanations, contradicting each other. Instead of peace and privacy there's pandemonium.
It's a clouded black night, as black as the current which has now abandoned us. All those fairy candles are just petty twinklings lighting up the tiniest part of our fearful darkness. Crowds have sought sanctuary in this and the other arbours, away from the now naked river.
And I know that I, Nelliam, am about to die . . . Soon, and bloodily. I try to make myself stand up, to flee while there's time. But that isn't how it was; Nelliam's legs don't heed Yaleen.
Unsurprisingly Hasso turns up late for our appointment. He chucks down two glasses of wine straight off before whispering to me what the Observers saw of the worm's head through their telescopes. I can hardly make out his mumbling, with all the surrounding din. "Speak up, will you!"
He recoils, brows knit, offended.
"I'm sorry, Hasso, we're all on edge. Pardon my tetchiness."
"That's all right. I understand. So then—"
A sudden scream from the direction of the waterfront cuts across the babble. Momentarily the hubbub dies—then it rekindles, doubled. People leap up and crush into the alley.
"Wait here! I'll be back." And off goes Hasso, too.
Before long, bedlam is spreading this way. A murky red light leaps up above the rooftops. Somebody cries, "Fire!" Then a huge crash deafens me, and the fairy candles dip in unison to a hot breeze.
Hasso's soon back, out of breath. "Armed men. Must be the west! Come on: to the Spire!" He seizes my arm.
But I resist. "My dear boy, I couldn't climb that Spire to save my life."
"That's exactly what—! Nelliam, I'll help you. I'll carry you up."
"No, you must go on your own. I'd burden you; rob you of your chance. But promise me something. Promise that you'll be true, up there."
"True?"
"Observe! Stay aloof! Record whatever happens. Now go. Go! Or I'll get angry with you."
He dithers. Of course. But ruin and terror are racing closer every moment.
So then he leaves me. Though not before, absurdly, passionately, he kisses my wizened brow.
I refill my glass from the beaker. Such a shame to waste good wine. I sip, and I wait.
Though death, when it comes, is by no means as blithe and quick as I expected.
Nor yet so final, either. . . .
At about this time I begin to detect something. For some reason my attention isn't being distracted by my sojourn in the £«-store, so much as sharpened. Maybe that's because I have just been Nelliam, w
ho is no one's fool. Maybe it's because the real significance of events shows clearly—luminously—through these lives, as never was during life itself.
From the comer of my mind's eye I catch a glimpse of what the Worm is doing with me while the "entertainments" are going on. It's using me as a kind of shuttle in a loom, to weave weft and warp together into a new design, a different and superior pattern.
It occurs to me that this might make me instrumental in what sort of God it becomes. I might gain some kind of influence over it.
So, during my next slice of life, as a fisherwoman of Spanglestream, I do my best to ignore the pageant. This isn't easy. As soon ignore your own life while you're busy living it! The proprietor of the life I'm reliving suspects she's being snubbed. But then she cottons on (I think).
Time and again, I present a certain image to myself. I make this image the fiery centre of my attention.
And this image is . . . But wait; not yet.
One day while I'm out in the fishing smack hauling in nets heavy with hoke, a hand reaches into my life. The hand hangs in mid-air like a fillet of white fish, fading off at the wrist. . . .
When I grasped that hand, sky and stream and fishing smack all dissolved at once into a foamy violet fog.
I sat up in the luminous chalice. It was Raf, my blanched zombi, who held my hand.
He helped me up, though I didn't feel particularly weak. On the contrary: quite perky! Perching on the lip of the basin, I decided that the Worm must have nourished me well and kept my limbs toned up while I'd been resting in the bowl. Unless my period of dream- life had seemed far longer than it really was.
"How long did I spend in the £fl-store, Raf? Hours? Days? Weeks?"
He shrugged. "I've been away dreaming again."
"And is the current a God now?"
"I'm not sure. It's . . . different. Maybe when a God's bom, it's only a baby God to start with, and needs to grow up?"
That special image was still rooted in the heart of me. I concentrated intently on it.
Worm, I thought, how goes the war?
Faint images flickered before my eyes; I couldn't make much sense of them.
Worm! I presented that special image to it.
With my inward ear I heard a groan of acquiescence. Victory! I had succeeded in printing that special pattern in the new fabric, in one comer at least.
I hopped down from the lip. "Okay," I told Raf, "I'll be on my way." I hoisted the bottles.
"What do you want those for?"
"Mustn't leave litter! Especially not in a God!"
"Oh, it can absorb them. Dump them."
Yes, when its body thinned out again ... He was right. So I dropped the bottles, which would only get in the way. Let the guild dock my pay, if they dared.
* * *
Raf and I parted at Opal Island. The tunnel end of the cavern was still shrunken, but no more so than before. The fronds kept out of my way.
I regained the dark exit. The helmet lay where I had abandoned it, but of the rope there was no sign; and the tunnel was pitch-black. I fiddled with the lamp to no effect, then cursed myself for a fool. The solution was simple.
Worm: light up the tunnel!
And presently the walls glowed faintly blue. Grudgingly; but enough to light my way. That I should be able to reach the mouth was a precondition of that special image I'd fed the Worm. Thirty paces along, I spotted the rope.
Maybe it had been jerked along when the Worm's jaws clamped shut. Or maybe the crew of the Yaleen had begun to haul it in ... I tugged the rope experimentally three times, but nothing happened. Was the boat still waiting? I laughed. Because it didn't matter; didn't matter in the slightest.
Before long I reached the end of the tunnel, where the rope led over the ledge and angled down a dark hole.
Worm, light your throat!
Light glowed faintly, and I rather wished it hadn't. Originally I had rushed right through the Worm's gullet in darkness, arriving almost before I knew I'd left. Now that I could see what faced me, claustrophobia loomed. I would have to dive head-first down the hole. Suppose I got stuck, would the Worm obligingly hiccup me out?
No point in brooding. Down I went. Fast, for the sides were slippery. I writhed round the bend, and hauled rope hand over hand.
Up. Up. Above me in the dim light I could see the rope sprouting from the lid of the tube like a tap-root. I couldn't see any sign of a seam. Squirming tight up against the lid, I prised. In vain. And maybe when the lid did split open the rope would run free and I would slide back down again.
An image appeared in my mind: of a trapdoor which only opened one way—and only when a weight bore down on it.
Now you tell me! I hung in despair, punching feebly overhead.
A second image blossomed: of the Worm's chin ducking underwater; its jaw cracking open while one comer of its mouth continued to clench the rope (in an askew grin, which seemed directed at me); then tons of river water pouring in.
If that was the only way. . . .
I braced myself as best I could. Clutching the rope in both hands, I shut my eyes, held my breath. Okay, do it!
The tube tipped forward. Squelchings and gluggings, offstage. A few preliminary drops dripped down my face, then suddenly a deluge drenched and battered me. I was nearly swept away.
Somehow, somehow I clawed hand over hand up through that waterfall . . . And I was still underwater. Why, oh why, hadn't I brought that bloody helmet? If I didn't get some air soon I was going to explode.
Dizzyingly my world tilted upwards. Higher and higher. I hung on for grim death as the river drained down past my eyes and nose. I spluttered, gulped air, blinked—and I could see a great wedge of daylight.
The throat had closed up tight again, leaving a shallow slop of water on the floor of the mouth. It was lucky for me no stingers were flapping about, but none had entered with the flood. (Maybe the Worm could control them?)
Lying hunched where I was in one comer of its jaws, I spied river. Sky and clouds. A chunk of boat—with one welcoming saffron word: my name.
I jerked my head about a few times to knock the water out of my ears. I heard no familiar voices outside, but this hardly surprised me. Given the muting effect of our anchorage, any cries of alarm would have been quickly stifled.
Okay, Worm. Open wide!
As the jaws unglued, I staggered erect. I tore strands of drool out of my way and stepped forward to the lip. The rope, still dripping from its sudden dunking, sagged over the gap of water to the capstan. Since I had stood here last, the boat had ridden back more than twenty spans, dragging its anchor, and half-turned.
The crew were all lined up, staring at me.
"Hi there!" I shouted. "What date is it?"
After goodness knows how many days of whispers, now at my shout a dam of pent-up noise broke open. Laudia, Delli, Sparki and Sal began to babble questions; but Peli bellowed, "Shut up!" louder than any of them, and answered me.
Seven days had passed since I'd gone inside.
A week of war.
"Right," I called, "I'm going to stop the war! And here's how—•"
I told them; and they gasped. But I think Peli and Sal believed me, at least.
"I'd like some food and drink sent over. Just in case I get peckish!"
"How about bedding?" shouted Peli.
Hardly. I'd slept in bushes, up trees, on mud and moss, on Spanglestream quayside, and most recently in a chalice of fog.
"No, but I could use a change of clothes and a towel—I'm drenched! And when you've sent everything over, unhitch this rope. Haul your anchor up. Sail the old Yaleen well clear!"
Because the boat was already well out of gangplank reach, some debate ensued as to the best method of supplying me; then a wooden laundry tub was dropped in the water, a canvas bag full of my requirements lowered into this, and a line tossed to me to pull the tub across. After emptying the tub, I cast it adrift.
"Hey!" cried Maranda indignantly.
Ignoring her, I stripped off—all but the bodice, which I had to tolerate. Fortunately it was fairly water-resistant. I towelled myself as dry as I could and donned new boots, breeches and a jacket.
"Oh, and you must signal downstream! Beach any 'jacks who are on the river!"
"Will do!" Peli unhitched the rope. I dragged it through the water and coiled it behind me in the mouth, leaving myself a loop to hang on to. Most of the rope was held tight in the gullet trap, of course. So now I had the Worm harnessed, after a fashion.
The crew soon upped anchor, upped sails, and stood off. Sparki was already signalling downstream. I stood there in the mouth, my chest braced against the rope.
Worm! And I presented that special image to it.
I met unexpected resistance. An image of majesty. Puissance. But I'm a God, this seemed to say.
So blast me with lightning! I retorted. If you don 7 like it.
There actually was a mild rumble, though it came from deep within the Precipices. I guessed the Worm was readjusting itself internally, since this rumbling went on for a while. The noise was more like flatulence, a grumbling of the guts, than thunder. After a while, it stopped. That cavern where I'd been must have deflated by now.
Nothing else happened, but I stood firm, still insisting on that image. This Worm wasn't going to make a fool of me now! Actually, the Worm was already obeying; that was what the thunder meant.
Yaleen. Its voice came clearly in my head. I shall help, because you helped me.
Nonsense, you've no other choice. And anyway it's your duty to help people, if you ’re a God.
Duty? Is it? My duty is .. . to know what I am. To know what the other God-being is.
Why not leave well alone, Worm? Look after your women and your waterway.
The other God has eyes and ears here, girl! I need to gather the Kas of its servants.
You 'll collect enough of those, as we clear up the mess you caused.
Afterwards, we’ll be quits? You and I? It was almost an appeal. The Worm was beginning to sound a bit more human. Less of that solemn "Worm of the World I am" business! Was that the secret of its change: that in becoming a God, it had become a bit more human at the same time? Less of a great big sponge for soaking up minds; more of a person in its own right? A person with a hint of me in it?
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