by Gene Wolfe
"I doubt that I will-Oreb, be quiet!-I certainly hadn't planned on eating anywhere."
"You think I want you to eat in my sewers." He chuckled again. "In my house. All right? Seven. You can come at seven?"
I said that I would come at seven gladly, if he would tell me where it was.
"It's a long way. I bring you myself. Where you staying?"
Staying was vague enough for me to stretch its meaning a trifle, and I told him that I was "staying" at the shop where I was given this paper, and supplied the name of the little street.
"I know the place. Atteno, he's putting you up?"
"I hope, at least, that he won't drive me away."
Inclito laughed; he has a good, loud, booming laugh. "I show you my sewers if he does. One I got never gets wet. Would make a good place to sleep. I pick you up at six, all right? Where you're staying."
So here I am. It is not six yet; but I have nothing better to do, and the shopkeeper, who is very obliging, lets me sit in his window and scribble away. I suppose I am a sort of living advertisement. I have swept his floors again, as I did for my quire of paper, dusted off everything, and rearranged a few little items on his shelves that were in some disorder-the tasks of my boyhood. I would like to tie his bundles of quills for him, as I did for my father; but he has already tied them all himself.
I wish I could charge as much for our paper as he charges for his. Nettle and I would be rich.
What Inclito said about his sewers here reminded me most unpleasantly of the great sewer on Green, underneath the City of the Inhumi. If I am going to chronicle my misadventures (which is what I seem to have been doing) I ought to include that one, the most horrible.
Sinew and the rest were asleep. I was sitting up and thinking over Krait's brief visit when the Neighbor came. He opened the door and left it standing open behind him, and I was so busy wondering whether I should wake the others and urge them to escape while they could that I found it hard to answer him sensibly.
"You are a friend of ours?" He smiled and pointed to Sea wrack's ring. His voice was thrilling in a way I cannot describe: no matter what he said, it was as though he were telling me that all the bad things that had ever befallen me had been tricks.
"Yes," I said. "I mean, I would like to be."
He smiled again. Although his face was shadowed by the brim of his hat, I could see his teeth flash. "Then will you open a sewer for us? We ask your help."
With every fiber of my being I wanted to say that I would, that I would gladly toil in his sewer for the remainder of my life if that was what he wanted. What I said instead was "I can't. We're prisoners here." Since I could see the open door beyond (and to some extent, through) him, it was an extraordinarily stupid remark.
He glanced at it. "It is true that your captors may be angry with you."
"I hope… Well, it really doesn't matter, but I don't like leaving my friends here. Can we take them with us?"
He shook his head.
"I didn't think so. My son?"
"No."
By that time we were out the door, which he slammed noisily behind us. "That will wake them up, " I muttered. Privately, I was afraid that it would bring an inhumu.
He said, "We want to wake all of you up."
"To our danger, you mean? It's much too late for that. We know it now." I explained to him how we had taken the lander, and how the inhumi had recaptured us when we landed.
"To your safety, " he said when I had finished. Now that I understand Krait's secret, I understand his remark as well; but at the time I had no notion of what he meant.
We went out a narrow door into an empty courtyard, and from the courtyard into the street. There were two luminous bodies in the night sky that were too large for stars; they seemed to engender shadows (vague and diffuse for the most part but occasionally deep) without actually giving light. I mean, of course, that they conveyed that impression.
"Are you afraid of enclosed places, or of underground places? Many of you are."
"I don't know. I haven't been in one for a long time." As soon as I spoke I recalled the pit from which Krait had saved me; and I said, "Except for one, and I was afraid of that one because I couldn't get out of it."
He looked at me thoughtfully. Written down as I have just now written it, it sounds silly; I could not see his face well enough to read its expression. I should say only that he turned his face toward me, and appeared to study me for several seconds. "You can get out of this sewer, " he told me, "provided you do not drown."
"That's good."
"If you are frightened, there will be nothing to prevent you from leaving before the sewer is open again. Will you do that?"
"I suppose I might. I'll try not to. Aren't you coming with me?"
"No, " he told me.
After that we walked in silence for a long time, a time in which we passed several streets-four or five at least. This was in the City of the Inhumi, and although it was late at night, it is at night that they are most active, on Green as here. It seemed strange to me then that we did not see more of them, and that they did not see us; but I know now that those who were active were seeking blood, and expected to find none in their city.
"I could go with you, " the Neighbor told me. "I could open the sewer myself, without your help. It is only fair that I tell you that."
I said, "In that case, I'm doubly grateful to you for freeing me."
"If I were to help you, it would become clogged again."
He was waiting for me to speak, so I nodded.
"So it seems to me, though I may be mistaken. It will almost certainly become clogged again, even if you do as we ask. That is the most probable outcome, unfortunately."
"But not for years, perhaps, " I suggested.
"That is correct, and does not matter. What does matter is that it may never be clogged again if you open it."
I believe I smiled, and I am afraid I smiled bitterly. "Do you think I've got miraculous powers?"
"If you do not know, " he told me solemnly, "I do not know."
We turned in to a building even less whole than most of the buildings in that ruinous city, a roofless shell whose floors were littered everywhere with broken stones, and I asked whether we could get into the sewer from there.
"No. We could have entered the sewer from the underground room in which you were confined, and the point at which you will enter it is a long way from here. Would you object if I were to touch your face? I consider it advisable." I consented, and he anointed both sides of it with a sweet-smelling oil whose perfume seemed to me to come from a whorl more distant than the three I knew of. It suggested strange thoughts, thoughts so overpowering at the time as to be waking dreams. That may have been its purpose.
I have been talking with the stationer. His name is Atteno, as Inclito said. I asked whether it would be all right for me to sleep here in his shop tonight, and promised I would take nothing without his permission. He says he will make up a little bed for me, by which I assume he means he will loan me blankets. Quite a change! Still, I am not sorry that I left our blankets with the girl from Han, although I have been sleeping in my robe ever since. I tore it in two places going through the forest, but that good woman mended it for me.
Atteno says that Inclito is a very important man. He was terribly impressed when I told him that Inclito was coming for me. He asked whether I could "do things." I was not sure what he meant by it, and told him I could do a few, at which he looked wise and went away. "Good man!" says Oreb.
Here I feel the way that the Neighbors must feel around us. We are ready to believe that they are practically minor gods-that they know everything and possess all manner of mysterious powers; but they must seem perfectly ordinary to themselves. The one I have been writing about (he never told me his name) said to me at one point, "You think that I know everything about you and your son."
I denied it. "I thought the Neighbors I spoke with on Blue might have told you about me, that's all."
When the bronze tablet opened and I saw the swords, I hesitated to touch them.
"Will you choose, " he asked me, "or should I choose for you?"
I said that it would better for him to choose, since I did not know who or what I was going to fight.
"I hope you won't have to fight at all. I don't think that you will. Do you want me to choose for you anyway?"
"I'm sure you must know more about these than I do."
He nodded and selected one. It would be easy to sketch, but I do not believe it will prove easy to describe. Let me try.
The blade was black, I suppose with age. I do not think the designs on it were writing, but I cannot guess what they were. It was widest toward the point, and sharply pointed. It narrowed toward the hilt in a concave curve, which gave it something of the appearance of a sickle in spite of its straight back.
But I have described it as I saw it when I drew it. I ought to have written first that it was in a black sheath of some hard, warm material I did not recognize, to which was attached a sword belt of many thin straps.
"Do you like it?"
I had unsheathed it before he spoke and was looking at the blade. I said, "It feels like a piece of my arm."
* * *
The sun is up, and I should look for another place to sleep. I slept very little last night, Inclito having brought me back here very late, and I having eaten too much of his good dinner. It was the first meal I have eaten since the soup in Cugino's village, I believe, and so I told myself that I would have to be careful, and found that I had not been careful enough when it was too late to do anything about it. Silk told us once that experience is a wonderful teacher, but one whose lessons come too late. I have found that true all my life.
Inclito drove up in a carriage, as I should say, and I got into it with him as soon as I had written arm, still waving the sheet to dry the ink. "You have the bird, " Inclito said. He sounded pleased.
I said something about not being able to escape him, to which Oreb himself contributed, "Bird stay!"
"When I saw you at the river you had the bird, but it flew away. I thought I was wrong. It was not your bird."
"I'm his, if anything," I told Inclito, which is the simple truth.
"The people here, " he laughed self-consciously, "they think you're a witch. It's because of your bird. They believe these things."
I said that they had been very kind to me, and that although I had been among them only two days I was already very fond of them. "People here enjoy their lives, " I explained to Inclito, not particularly clearly, "and people who do are always good people, even when they're bad people."
"They like you too, but your clothes frighten them. The black color."
"This?" I was about to tell him it was an augur's robe, but there seemed little point in saying so.
"They think it means you hurt people if you want to. Your bird's black, too. Red like blood."
"Good bird!"
Inclito smiled. "That's what they hope. A good bird. Witches got pet animals. Cats mostly only not all the time. Familiares. You know?"
He looked at me inquiringly, and I shook my head.
"It means the animal's in the witch's family. Sometimes it's really his father or his mother. Something like that. You think it's funny. So do I. I got a pet too. A horse. Not one of those. He's not my father, just my horse."
I repeated that Oreb wasn't mine.
"You got that white hair, so they think sometimes you hurt people maybe, but bad people."
He laughed. "Even if they're good."
I told him that I was too weak and sick to hurt anyone, and that I had no weapons in any case; it was a lie, of course, but the truth was and is that I have no intention of using Hyacinth's azoth.
By that time we had reached the town gate, I believe. It was closed and barred, as he tells me it always is after shadelow, but the guards saluted him and opened it as soon as he reined up.
As we clattered through, he said very positively, "I asked you to dinner because I like you."
Oreb muttered, "Good man?"
I nodded, having no doubts about that.
"You're here. You want to eat? I want to feed you. But there's more."
I said, "I was afraid of that."
"You got no reason. I want our people to see you with me. Then they think you're on our side. So they don't hurt you. What's wrong with that?"
"Nothing, " I told him. "In fact, it's very kind of you. I understand the open carriage now, and your driving so that both of us are seated up here."
He laughed again, such a loud and booming laugh that I half expected it to be echoed by the dark fields around us. "I always drive myself. I got a coachman to do the work, but I drive. I like it. I like the open air. I like the sun, the wind."
"So do I, in fine weather like this. May I ask who's on the other side?"
"Soldo and a couple others." Inclito waved them away as beneath his contempt. "We fight like brothers. You know how that is?"
"I've had some experience of it."
"Most towns, they're the only one from wherever they came from up there." He pointed with the whip. "Where the sun goes clear across the sky."
"The Long Sun Whorl."
"That's right. Where you come from, they got any other towns down here?"
"Not on Blue."
"That's right, " he repeated. "With us it's different, a lot come. Different landers. The leaders, they're different too. All of us from Grandecitta, though. It's a real big place."
"I suppose it must be."
"Too many for one town anyway. So four. Ours is Blanko. You say you like it. So do I. What I like most, the people run it. No duko. We get together, talk things over, and we decide. There's some people nobody listens to, though. Know how that is?"
"And some who are heard with respect."
"You're a wise man. I know that already. In Saldo they got a duko, Duko Rigoglio. He wants to tell us what to do. We don't like it. He's got a lot of troopers and he's trying to get more. Give them land, huh? Silver. Horses. Whatever they want. He's got a lot. Trouble is, there's not too many for him to hire. You know Silk?" This last was said with an intonation I did not entirely understand.
"I knew him once."
"I see." Neglecting his horses for a moment he turned his head to look at me. "I'm not going to ask you your name."
Thinking of Pig, I asked him to suggest a good one.
"You want me to?"
"Why not?" I said. "You must know a great many."
"Incanto. You like it? Make people like you."
I nodded. "Then my name is Incanto. Did you hear that, Oreb? Pay attention."
"Smart bird!"
"I hope so."
Inclito said, "You want to fight me?"
"No, " I told him. "Of course not."
"I don't want to fight you either." He dropped his whip into its mounting, took the reins in his left hand, and offered me his right, which I accepted.
"Then I tell you, " he said. "I had a brother with that name. He's dead. He's just a little baby when he dies. My mother, she remembers and maybe she likes you for it. I don't remember. I'm not born then. Only his stone."
"In Grandecitta."
"That's right. We come. The dead, they stay. Maybe not always, though. We read about Silk here, there's a book."
I nodded.
"We think probably he's dead. Then bang!" He cracked his whip over the horses' backs. "This Silk, he's in some town way down south. Mountain town they call Gaon. He's hiring men to fight for him. Troopers. So there's nobody for Duko Rigoglio."
Inclito laughed again, this time softly. "I tell my family, I say, Silk's here, he's come to help us. I don't know how he knows about us, Incanto."
"I doubt that he does."
"You're hurt. Not your eye, newer, under your clothes. Maybe a dog bite, huh?"
I tol
d him it was not.
"Could be a needier."
I shook my head.
"Or a slug, maybe." When I said nothing, Inclito added, "You're a lucky man. Man that's hit by a slug, usually he dies. Silk's like you. That's what his book says. He's not a trooper, but he fights too. He's got a needier, sometimes. Or with his stick." He tapped mine with the shaft of his whip.
"I'm not Silk, whatever you may think. I don't want to lie to you."
"I don't make you, Incanto. You're my brother, but we don't fight." He launched into an account of his military career, which had been extensive.
When we had driven half a league or more, he said, "I want your advice here, Incanto. Your help. Maybe you don't know why I do that."
"I could offer several guesses."
"You don't have to. I'll tell you. I give everybody in Blanko advice. How to train. How to fight. We have the meetings, I told you. It's called the Corpo, when we all come together. They want to know. I reach into my head and I tell them." He gestured, pretending to pull something from his ear. "Now I got no more. It's empty up there. So I ask you."
"Wise man, " Oreb muttered, and took wing, soaring over pasture and wood.
I said, "Then my first piece of advice is that you resist the temptation to ask the advice of those less familiar with the situation than yourself."
"Good advice." Inclito clucked to his horses and made a little show of looking thoughtful. "I can't ask your advice about the war in the south? You don't know nothing about that?"
"Much less than you do, I'm sure." Nearly a week had passed since I had heard any news.
"If I was to tell you what worries me… " He paused as the carriage jolted along a particularly bad stretch. "If I was to tell you, maybe I could think better. It's this Silk. Not in the book, a real man."
I agreed.
"He's been hiring troopers to help fight. I said that? He has."
"Mercenaries."
"I knew there was a word. You know something about them, I can see that. He'll win, this real man they call Silk. His town'll win. These mercenaries he hires will have to look for somebody new to collect from. Will he let them keep the slug guns he gives them? He does this in the book, Incanto. You think maybe he'll do it again?"