Voices

by Ursula K. Le Guin

  "A fountain full of demon water," I said. "It ran dry centuries ago. But your soldiers smashed it all the same, to get the demons out."

  "You don't have to talk about demons all the time," he said sullenly.

  "Oh but look," I said, "see, around the base of the urn, those little carvings? Those are words. That's writ­ing. Writing's black magic. Written words are all demons, aren't they? You want to go nearer and read them? Want to see some demons close up?''

  "Come on, Mem," he said. "Layoff." He glared at me, hurt and resentful, That was what I wanted, wasn't it?

  "All right," I said after a while. "But look, Simme. There isn't any way we can be friends. Not till you can read what the fountain says. Not till you can touch that stone and ask blessing on my house."

  He looked at the long, ivory-colored Sill Stone set into the center of the step, worn into a soft hollow by the hands that had touched it over all the centuries. I bent down now and touched it.

  He said nothing. He turned at last and went away down Galva Street. I watched him go. There was no tri­umph in me. I felt defeated.

  * * *

  ORREC CAME TO DINNER that evening, recovered and hungry. We talked first of his recitation, he and Gry and I telling the Waylord what he had said and how the crowd had responded to it.

  Sosta had been down to the market to hear him and now was swoonier than ever, gazing at him across the table with her face gone all soft and loose, till he had to take pity on her. He tried to joke, but that didn't work, so he tried to turn her mind from him to her real fu­ture, asking where she would live after she married. She managed to explain that her betrothed had chosen to join our household and be a Galva. Orrec and Gry, who had a great interest in the ways people do things, asked all about our customs of marriage-bargain and chosen kinship. Mostly Sosta gazed, mute with adoration, and the Waylord answered; but when Ista sat down with us at table she had a chance to boast about her son-in-law to be, which she loved to do.

  "It seems hard that he and Sosta can't see each other all this time before the wedding," Gry said. "Three months!"

  "Betrothed couples used to be able to meet at any public occasion," the Waylord explained. "But now we have no dances or festivals. So the poor things have to catch glances in passing .. ."

  Sosta blushed and smirked. Her betrothed strolled by regularly with his friends every evening, just when Ista and Sosta and Bomi happened to be sitting out in the side court facing Galva Street to take the air.

  After dinner the rest of us went to the little north court. We found Desac already there waiting. He came forward and took Orrec's hands and called blessing on him. "I knew you'd speak for us!" he said. "The fuse is lit."

  "Let's see what the Gand thinks of my perfor­mance," said Orrec. "I might get a critical commentary."

  "Has he sent for you?" asked Desac, "Tomorrow? What time?"

  "Late afternoon—is that right, Memer?"

  I nodded.

  "Will you go?" the Waylord asked.

  "Of course," said Desac.

  "I can scarcely refuse," Orrec said. "Though I could ask to postpone." He looked at the Waylord, alert to catch the meaning of his question.

  "You must go," Desac said. "The timing is perfect." His tone was brusque and military.

  I could see Orrec didn't like being told he must go.

  He kept his eyes on the Waylord.

  "No profit in postponement, I suppose," the Waylord said. "But there may be some danger in going."

  "Should I go alone?"

  "Yes," Desac said.

  "No," Gry said in a calm, flat voice.

  Orrec looked at me. "Everybody gives orders except us, Memer."

  '''The gods love poets, for they obey the laws the gods obey,'" the Waylord said.

  "Sulter, my friend, there's danger in any undertak­ing," Desac said with a kind of impatient compassion. "You're walled up here, away from the life of the streets, the doings of the people. You live among shadows of ancient times and share their wisdom. But a time comes when wisdom is in action—when caution becomes de­struction."

  "A time comes when the will to act defeats thought," the Waylord said grimly.

  "How long must I wait? There was no answer given!"

  "Not to me." The Waylord glanced very briefly at me.

  Desac did not notice that. He was angry now. "Your oracle is not mine. I was not born here. Let books and children tell you what to do. I'll use my head. If you dis­trust me as a foreigner you should have told me years ago. The people who are with me trust me. They know I never wanted anything but the freedom of Ansul and the restoration of the bond with Sundraman. Orrec Caspro knows that. He stands with me. I'll go now. I'll come back here to Galvamand when the city is free. Surely you'll trust me then!"

  He turned and strode out of the courtyard, not through the house but down the broken steps at the open north end. He turned the corner of the house and was gone. The Waylord stood silent, watching him.

  After a long time Orrec asked, "Was I the fool who lit the fire?"

  "No," the Waylord said. "A spark from the flint, maybe. No blame in that."

  "If I go tomorrow I will go alone," Orrec said, but the Waylord smiled a little and looked at Gry.

  "You go, I go," she said. "You know that."

  After a while Orrec said, "Yes, I do. But," to the Waylord, "if I went too far today, the Gand may be forced to punish me, to show his power. Is that what you fear?"

  The Waylord shook his head. "He'd have sent sol­diers here. It's Desac I fear. He will not wait for Lero."

  Lero is the ancient, sacred soul of the ground where our city stands. Lero is the moment of balance. Lero is a great round stone down in the Harbor Market, so poised that it might move at any time and yet has never moved.

  The Waylord soon excused himself from us, saying he was tired. He gave me no sign to follow or come to him later. He went into the house, slow and lame, hold­ing himself upright.

  I woke again and again that night seeing the words in the book, Broken mend broken, hearing the voice say them, my mind going over them, over and over them, trying to make them into meaning.

  ♦ 11 ♦

  The next morning I did the house worship very early and then went down to both markets, not only to buy the food we needed but to see what was going on in the city. I thought everything would be changed, everybody would be ready for a great thing to happen, as I was. But nobody seemed ready for any­thing. Everything was just as always, people in the streets hurrying, not looking at one another, keeping out of trouble; Ald guards in blue cloaks swaggering at the corner of the marketplace; vendors in their stalls, chil­dren and old women bargaining and buying and creep­ing home on the byways. No tension, no excitement, nobody saying anything unusual. Only once I thought I heard somebody crossing the Customs Street bridge whistle a few notes of the tune of "Liberty."

  When Orrec and Chy set off for the Council House late in the afternoon they went on foot. They took Shetar, but not me. There was no reason to have a groom without a horse, and they were concerned that there might be danger. I was relieved. I didn't want to face Simme, because every time I thought of him my heart sank with shame.

  But as soon as they were gone I knew I couldn't stay at home. I couldn't bear to sit in the house waiting. I had to be closer to the Council Hill, where they were. I had to be near them.

  I dressed in my women's clothes, with my hair done up in a knot instead of worn long like a child or a man, so that I was Memer the girl instead of Mem the groom or Nobody the boy. I wanted to wear my own clothes because I needed to be myself. Perhaps I had to put myself into a little danger, to feel that I was with them.

  I walked along Galva Street quickly, not looking up, as women always walked, till I came to Goldsmiths' Bridge over the Central Canal. The gold of Ansul had mostly gone to enrich Asudar; many of the shops on the bridge had long been closed, but some still sold cheap trinkets and worship-candles and such. I could go into one of the shops, o
ut of the thoroughfare, and keep watch for my friends.

  Even though nothing had been going on in the mar­kets, and there was no sign of any agitation here at the bridge nearest the Council Hill, and the two Ald foot soldiers on guard duty were lounging on the bridge steps playing dice, I couldn't rid myself of the feeling that something was happening or about to happen—a sense that some great thing overhead was bending and bending, about to break.

  I stood in the shadow of a shop doorway. I'd talked a little with the old man who kept the shop, telling him I was waiting to meet a friend; he nodded knowingly and disapprovingly, but let me stay. Now he dozed be­hind his counter with its trays of wooden beads, glass bangles, and incense sticks. Not many people went by outside. There was a little god-niche by the door frame and I touched the sill of it now and then, whispering the blessing.

  As if in a dream I saw a lion pace by, lashing its tail. I came out of the shop and fell into step with my friends, who looked only mildly surprised. "I like your hair that way," Gry said. She was dressed as Chy, but was no longer playing the role.

  "Tell me what happened!"

  "When we get home."

  "No, please, now."

  "All right," Orrec said. We were on the steps at the north end of the bridge. He turned aside at the bottom, where a railed marble pavement projects out over the canal; from it a narrow flight of stairs leads down to a pier for boats and fishermen. We descended those steps to the canal bank, right under the bridge, out of sight of the street. The first thing we did was go down and touch the water, with a word of blessing for Sundis, the river that makes our four canals. Then we all squatted there, watching the brownish-green, half-transparent water run. It seemed to carry urgency away with it. But pretty soon I said, "So?"

  "Well," Gry said, "the Gand wanted to hear the story Orrec told in the market yesterday."

  "Adira and Marra?"

  They both nodded.

  "Did he like it?"

  "Yes," Orrec said. "He said he didn't know we had warriors like that. But he particularly liked the Old Lord of Sul. He said, 'There is the courage of the sword and the courage of the word, and the courage of the word is rarer.' You know, I wish I knew some way to bring him and Sulter Galva together. They're men who would understand each other."

  That would have offended me a few days earlier. Now it seemed right.

  "And nothing unusual happened? He didn't ask you to sing 'Liberty,' did he?"

  Orrec laughed. "No. He didn't. But there was a little commotion."

  "The priests started a chanting worship in the tent again, just when Orrec started reciting," Gry said. "Loud. Drums. Lots of cymbals. Ioratth went black as a thundercloud. He asked Orrec to stop, and sent an of­ficer into the tent. And the head priest came right out, all in red with mirrors, very gorgeous he was, but grim as death. He stood there and said the holy worship of the Burning God was not to be interrupted by vile hea­then impieties. Ioratth said the ceremony of sacrifice was to be at sunset. The priest said the ceremony had begun. Ioratth said it was two hours yet till sunset. The priest said the ceremony had begun and would con­tinue. So Ioratth said, 'An impious priest is a scorpion in the kings slipper!' And he sent for slaves and had a carpet set up on poles to make shade, by the arcade above the East Canal, and we all trooped over, and Orrec went on."

  "But Iorarth lost the round," Orrec said. "The priests carried on with their sacrifice. Ioratth finally had to hurry over to the big tent so he wouldn't miss the whole thing."

  "Priests are good at making people jump," Gry said. "There's a lot of priests in Bendraman. Bossing people about."

  "Well," Orrec said, "they're held in honor, and they perform important rites, so they get to meddling with morals and politics . . . Ioratth's going to need support from his High Gand against this lot."

  "I think he sees you as support," Gry said. "A way to begin making some kind of link with people here. I wonder if that's why he sent for you."

  Orrec looked thoughtful, and sat thinking it over. A horse galloped by on the street high above us, with a loud, hard clackety-clackety of shod hoofs on stone. The sleek surface of the water ruffled and roiled out in the middle of the canal. The sea wind that had blown all day had died away, and this was the first breath of the land wind of evening. Shetar, who had lain down on the dirt, sat up and made a low singsong snarling noise. The fur along her spine was raised a little, mak­ing her look fluffy.

  The water rippled against the lowest marble step and the pilings of the pier. There was a smoky tint in the fading, red-gold light on the wooded hills above the city. Everything down here by the water was peaceful, and yet it was as if a breath were being held, as if everything held still, poised. The lion stood up, tense, listening.

  Again a horse galloped past, up on the bridge above us—more than one horse, a racket of hoofs, and the sound of running feet on the bridge, and shouting, both up there and in the distance. We were all afoot now, staring up at the marble railing and the backs of the houses on the bridge. "What's going on?" Orrec said.

  I said aloud not knowing what I said, "It's breaking, it's breaking."

  The shouting and yelling were directly above us now; horses neighed; there was trampling of feet, more shouting, scuffling. Orrec started up the stairs and stopped, seeing people at the marble railings, a crowd of people, fighting or struggling, yelling orders, screaming in panic. He ducked as something came hurtling over the railing, a huge dark thing that crashed onto the mud by the staircase with a heavy sodden thud. Heads appeared at the top of the stairs, men peering down, gesturing, shouting.

  Orrec had leapt down off the stairs. He said, "Under the bridge!" We all four ran to hide under the low last arch of the bridge where it joined the shore, where the men on the bridge could not see us.

  I saw the thing that had fallen. It was not huge. It was only a man. It lay like a heap of dirty clothes near the foot of the steps. I could not see the head.

  No one came down the steps. The racket up on the bridge died suddenly, completely, though somewhere in the distance, up towards the Council House, there was a great, dull noise. Gry went to the fallen man and knelt by him, glancing up once or twice at the railing above her, from which she might be seen. She came back soon. Her hands were dark with mud or blood. "His neck's broken," she said.

  "Is he an Ald?" I whispered. She shook her head.

  Orrec said, "Stay here a while, or try to get back to Galvamand?"

  "Not by the street," Gry said.

  They both looked at me, and I said, "By the Ern­bankrnents," They didn't know what I meant. "I don't want to stay here," I said.

  "Lead on," said Orrec,

  "Should we wait till dark?" Gry asked.

  "It'll be all right under the trees." I pointed up the canal to where great willows stooped out over the bank. I was desperate to get home. I feared for my lord, for Galvamand. I had to be there. I set out, keeping away from the water and close to the wall, and soon we were under the willows. A couple of times we stopped to look back, but there was nothing to be seen from down here but the backs of the houses on the bridge, and across the canal, the wall and treetops and rooftops. No sound came to us from the streets. The air was thick, and I thought I smelled smoke.

  We came to the Embankments, the great stone walls like fortresses that hold and divide the River Sundis where it comes out of the hills. Like all the children of Ansul I had played on the Embankments, climbing the steep steps cut into the walls, leaping the gaps, running across the narrow bridges of chained planks that con­nect the banks for the use of workmen and dredgers. Our game then was to dare one child to cross the plank bridge while the others jumped on it so that it bounced up and down wildly in the water. Our game now was to dare Shetar to cross. She took one look at the flimsy set of planks with water slipping and sliding over them, and crouched with her shoulders up and her tail down, saying very clearly, No.

  Gry immediately sat down beside her and put a hand on her head behind the ears. She an
d Shetar seemed to be having a discussion. I saw that much, but in my haste I'd already started across the bridge. Once you start you cant stop, keeping going is the whole trick of it. I went on across and then stood on the far bank, feeling foolish and desperate, until I saw Gry and Shetar both get up, and set out across the canal—Gry stepping steadily from plank to plank, and the lion swim­ming beside her, holding her fierce head clear of the water. Orrec followed Gry.

  Once on shore Shetar shook herself but cats cant shake water off like dogs. Her coat was black with wet in the twilight, and she looked shrunken, lean, and small. She showed her white teeth in a mighty snarl.

  "There's another bridge and a boat," I said.

  "Lead on," Orrec said.

  I led them across the abutment to the East Canal; we crossed that as we had crossed the other; then up by the steep narrow side-cut stairs onto the great wedge­shaped abutment that separates the East Canal from the river itself across it, and down again to the river. By then it was getting quite dark. We crossed the river on the line ferry that is always there. The boat was on our side; we got in and pulled across. The current is strong, and it took both Orrec and me to haul us. Shetar did not want to get into the boat, did not want to be in the boat, and growled all the way across, sometimes mak­ing a short coughing roar. She was shivering with cold or fear or rage. Gry talked to her now and then, but mostly just kept a hand on her head behind the ears.

  The line ferry landing is at the foot of the old park. Gry took the leash off and Shetar leapt up into the darkness of the woods and vanished. We followed her, finding our way through the trees, up to the paths where Gry and Shetar and I had walked, and so down again to Galvamand, coming at it from the northeast. The lion ran before us like a shadow in the shadows. The house stood huge, dark, and silent as a hill.

  I thought in panic, It's dead, they're dead.

  I ran ahead of the others across the court, into the house, calling out. There was no answer. I ran through the Waylord's apartments, all in darkness, and on back to the secret room. My hand shook so that I could barely write the words to open the door. There was no light in the room but the faint glimmer of the skylights. No one was there. No one but the books that spoke, the presence in the cave.