He went back the way he had come. Clinging to a pole, he stared at the box in the net across the room.
"Box, when they finish asking me questions, how will they take me to the other place?"
"They will put you in a skin again and keep you until the other place is ready. Then they will put you in an engine that travels through the water. Another engine will take you from the top of the water to the other place."
"How long will it take to get the other place ready?"
"It will take fifty summers."
"... Why not kill me and be done with it?"
"An engine can't kill a man."
"So you said before. Box, have you ever lied to me?"
"No, Thorinn."
"Even when you told me the engines in that cavern wouldn't harm me?"
"They did not harm you."
"They broke the bladder, and kept me from going up the shaft!" The box said, "Thorinn, I must ask you a question. Is it harmful to you to be hindered in your coming and going?"
"Yes."
"You can come and go from one room to another in this place."
"What's the use of that?"
"In the room above this one, you can run around the wall."
This was so absurd that Thorinn did not answer; but after a moment curiosity got the better of him and he floated up through the hole to look at the empty room. He touched the wall with his hand: it was soft and yielding. Cautiously he pulled himself up, set one foot against the wall, pressed. The spongy material gave him unexpected purchase: he kicked out, soared; the curved wall came up to meet him. He was off balance, but caught himself with his hands, kicked again. In a few moments he had the feel of it, and he discovered that the faster he moved, the more weight he had and the easier it was to run. The exercise was grateful to his muscles, but he tired quickly. When the hole in the floor came by again, he caught it, pulled himself through. Sweating and hot, he went to the water tube in the wall and drank. Then he tried the food tube, but a warm, sweetish paste came into his mouth and he spat it out.
"Don't you like the food?" asked the voice from the wall abruptly.
"No, it tastes like spoiled porridge."
"You will be given other food. What is porridge?"
"It's something to eat—you boil grain until it's soft and then you eat it."
"What is grain?"
"It's food—it grows in the ground—" Exasperated, Thorinn cried, "What difference does it make, anyhow? Why are you asking these questions?"
"This engine was told by the Monitor to ask questions."
"The Monitor? Who is he?"
"The Monitor is the king of the world. When you were in the dark cave with the lake, who else was there?"
"No one. I was there by myself."
"Where did you go from that cave?"
"If I answer," Thorinn said, "what will you give me in return?"
"This engine will answer your questions."
"That's not enough. I want my freedom."
"What is your freedom?"
"... The right to go wherever I please, and do what I like."
"This engine can't give you your freedom. Where did you go from the dark cave?"
"Tell the Monitor to come here, then. If he wants to ask questions, let him ask them himself."
"The Monitor will not come. If you do not answer now, no more water or food will be given until you answer."
Thorinn kept a stubborn silence. After a moment he went to the wall and tried the drinking tube; it was dry. He did not bother to test the food tube, but opened one of his bundles and unwrapped it until he found the magic jug. The transparent stuff he had covered it with was gone, and the fabric around it was sopping wet. Peering into the jug, he saw only a few bright half-globes of water clinging to the sides. As he had half expected, the jewels were gone.
He set the jug adrift in the room and watched it awhile, then recaptured it and looked inside again. The globules of water had joined into a larger ball clinging to one side; it broke loose when he moved the jug, wavering and changing shape, then clung to the wall again. How was he to get it out?
He jerked the jug suddenly away from him; the ball of water spun out, surging into improbable shapes, and hung in midair, gradually settling into a perfect globe: but when he put his lips to it, it ran all over his face and chest.
Some smaller globules were left drifting slowly in all directions; Thorinn pursued these and succeeded in capturing some in his mouth, where they instantly became like ordinary water again and he was able to swallow them; but there must be a better way.
He tore off a piece of the fabric of one of his bundles and wadded it into the mouth of the jug, then went on another restless circuit. As an afterthought, he tried the water tubes in the other sleeping rooms, but they were dry too. When he returned to his own room, he saw by the darkness of the cloth in the jug that it was wet, and sucked a little water out of it. Later it became still wetter, and he saw that he could get all the moisture he needed in that way.
"Box," he said presently, "how is it that the engine can speak, but doesn't know what porridge is?"
"I taught the engine to speak, but I could not tell it what porridge is, because you had never told me." Irritably, Thorinn sprang from one pole to another, then back again. "You talked to it while I was asleep?
What else did you tell it?"
"I told it all that I knew."
" Why, in Snorri's name?"
"Because it asked."
"Even though I told you not to do anything that would harm me?"
"If I had not taught the engine to speak, it could not have talked to you, and that would have harmed you."
Thorinn was silent a moment. He saw that the box was right, but that only made him angrier. "Box, from now on, if you can do something that will help me escape, you must do it."
"Yes, Thorinn."
But what could the box or anyone do? It seemed to him that without weapons, locked in this cage, he had only one hope, and that was to bargain. If they wanted his information enough, they would release him; if not, not.
"Box," he said, "who is the Monitor?"
"The Monitor is an engine."
"You mean the world is ruled by an engine? How did that come about?"
"I don't know, Thorinn."
"Then how do you know the king is an engine?"
"The engine that spoke to you is not used to speaking to men. It calls itself 'this engine,' not 'I.' If the Monitor were a man, the engine would be used to speaking to men. Therefore the Monitor is an engine."
"But it was not like that when you were made?"
"No."
"Who was the king then?"
"There were many kings, chosen by the people, and the Monitor was their servant."
"I don't think an engine should be king," Thorinn said.
"Thorinn, I must ask you a question. Would it be better if a man were king, even if he harmed the people more than an engine would?"
Thorinn scowled. "No, I suppose not, but—" He paused for thought. "How old is the Monitor, box?"
"It is thirty-five hundreds of thousands of days and sixty thousands of days old." Thorinn whistled in amazement. "Well, then, it would be better to have kings who were men, because at least a bad king would die and then you might get a better one." Thorinn ate some cheese and sucked water from the jug. Restless, he explored the other rooms again, but there was little of interest there. He found no cupboards or presses anywhere, nothing but the empty rooms. He ran again in the running room, then went back to his starting point. For lack of any other occupation, he opened his wallet and removed its contents one by one: fire stick, light-box, pebbles, a bit of crystal, the scrap of cloth woven with bright figures. He replaced each object carefully after he was done with it.
Then for a while he shook globes of water out of the magic jug and watched them drift slowly about the room. By passing his hand between two of them, he found that he cou
ld make them collide and merge into a larger ball. Whenever a floating globe touched one of the poles or handles, it rebounded and went on, but when a globe touched the wall, floor, or ceiling, it clung and then disappeared, leaving a dark spot that slowly faded.
It was hard to credit what the box had told him about the world; yet it must be so, for in this place, where there was no weight at all, water formed perfect globes; above, in the wingmen's cavern, where there was little weight, the waves in the river were taller than his head; and so upward to the Midworld, where things behaved normally and had their proper weight. All this had a logic and symmetry which he could grasp and which in a curious way pleased him.
Now that he knew he had to do with an engine, his problem was clearer. Engines knew a great deal, but they were bound by many geases. If it was true that an engine could not kill a man, then it had been idle for the engine to threaten him with thirst and starvation.
But how badly did they want his answers—what did they want them for? If he had misjudged, he might go to sleep tonight and wake up fifty summers later in that sealed cavern they were making for him. Eventually weariness overcame him, and he slept between one thought and another, floating where he was, without trying to reach the sleeping pole.
14
“ ^
How Thorinn was offered dominion over the world at a price, and learned his true name. He came up out of darkness with a gasp and a shudder: then he saw that he was still in the same room. It was a moment longer before he realized that the net on the wall was empty. All his possessions, including the box and the magic jug, were gone.
When thirst began to fret him, he took off his clothes and went into the washing box, but as he had more than half expected, nothing happened when he put his feet on the floor. He did not bother to dress again. Without the box to talk to or anything to occupy his hands, he had nothing to do but to wander through the empty rooms, around and around. Presently he was hungry as well as thirsty; he thought with longing of the fruit he had eaten in the cavern of the flower people and again in the demons' cavern; of the crisp dry taste of cheese; of dried meat, tough and full of flavor. That passed, and the thirst remained. When he was younger he had had a mouse, kept in a cage he had carved out of an oak gall; he had fed it grain and oatmeal, and a bit of cheese now and then; he remembered how the mouse had sat up and nibbled the cheese, turning it around and around with its dainty paws. He slept and awoke again. Nothing in the rooms had changed. His thirst was a torment; his throat and tongue were dry, his lips cracking; his very eyeballs were dry. Each time he passed the crystals in the wall, he felt the engine watching, silent, waiting for him to speak first. He vowed to himself that he would not, if he died for it.
When he slept again, he dreamed that he was drinking long, delicious drafts from the spring above Hovenskar, and that the sky was blue and the grass yellow. Then the water turned to dry leaves in his mouth, and he awoke. He was very feeble, and it was too much effort even to pull his weightless body from one pole to another. Toward the end of that day, he began to see figures moving in the room: he saw Goryat, and Untha, and a tree demon, but they were transparent.
He awoke and knew that something had changed. Over his face a crystal shell drew away. His thirst was gone; he licked his lips and they were moist. Now the engine with its spidery arms was drifting toward him: the arms reached out, plucked him up gently from the box he was in. He had an impulse to free himself, but forbore. They were rising through the circular hole in the ceiling; now they were in the sleeping room. The engine put him with his back against the pole, just as it had done before; the coils came around him. The engine withdrew and disappeared into the room below.
"Are you ready to answer questions now?" asked the voice.
"No," he said. "Bring my things back."
"Your things will be brought."
Thorinn released himself from the coils, tried the water tube, although he felt no thirst. He drank, swallowed a little, spat the rest out. Next he tried the food tube, and this time, in place of the sticky mass that had come before, a bolus of something firmer came into his mouth. It was like a soft cheese. He did not like the texture, but the taste was not bad; he chewed and swallowed it, and then took another. The engine reappeared with his bundles clutched in its arms. It floated to the net on the wall and dexterously tucked all the bundles inside. All the things he had had before were there, but not his sword or bow.
"Bring my weapons, too," he said.
The voice did not reply. Thorinn made his way to the washing-box and cleansed himself. When he came out, feeling stronger, the engine was rising through the hole with his sword, the bow, and half a dozen arrows in its arms. It thrust the weapons into the net, turned, and dropped out of sight again. The bow was cracked, the arrows had lost all their pitch, but the sword and sheath were intact. Thorinn dressed and buckled them on.
"Are you ready to answer questions now?"
"Not now, and not to you."
"If you do not answer now, no more food or water will be given." With more boldness than he felt, Thorinn answered, "You tried that once and it didn't work. It won't work next time either. Leave me alone until I eat and rest."
The voice said nothing more. Thorinn examined his bundles, unwrapped some meat, ate and drank. He was weak, but growing stronger.
"Now I'll answer questions," he said, "but only to the Monitor, not you." Before he could blink, a man in a white robe was standing there. He was an old man, three ells tall, white of mane and beard. His yellow eyes burned into Thorinn's. Around him was a lambent glow; when he turned, spidery webworks of brilliance spun on the walls. Thorinn would have fallen to his knees if he could; the breath went out of his body, and the fine hairs on his arms were standing up stiff as quills.
"I am the Monitor," the old man boomed. "Will you answer my questions, Thorinn Goryatson?" Thorinn realized in panic that he had miscalculated; before this awesome majesty he felt himself no more than a worm.
"Yes, lord," he said miserably.
"Tell me, then, where you went from the dark cave."
"There was a narrow passage—I got into it by moving stones away. Then another cave and another passage, and then I found a hole in the floor covered by a shield. Under that there was a cavern with people in it."
Behind the Monitor one of the crystals in the wall came alight, and in it Thorinn saw, as if spread out below him, the river and the forests of the flower-people. "Was it this cavern?" the old man demanded.
"Yes."
The crystal blinked, and now he saw a tiny shape floating down the river. It was the pleasure pod, and he realized with a cold shock that he himself was inside it. The pod ran down the swift current, sank under the wall of rock, and was gone.
Now the picture changed again. Thorinn was looking at the grassy bank above the river where the dead limb still lay, and the forked limb on top of it, with the punctured gourd in the fork. The gourd, he saw, was beginning to rot.
The crystal blinked again, and now he saw the whole device as he had made it—the gourd full of water holding down the fork of the limb, the creeper looped around the projecting stub at one end, tied to the pleasure pod at the other.
"Is this what you did?"
In the crystal, a tiny Thorinn pierced the gourd with his sword, watched the water begin to gush out, then turned down the slope and got into the gaping pleasure pod. There was something wrong about the Thorinn figure and the pod and the creeper: they had thin pale edges that seemed to separate them from the rest of the scene, and the figure's movements were not quite right. The pod closed over the tiny Thorinn; as the water continued to run from the gourd, the forked limb tilted, the creeper slid off the stub, the pod went down the bank into the river.
"Yes," said Thorinn, "that's what happened."
"Who taught you to make such an engine?"
"No one."
"How then did you learn to make it?"
"I don't know—I just
thought about it, and then there was a picture in my head of how it must be." The Monitor looked at him in silence for an instant. There was a pale edge around him, too, as if, as if—"Where did you go from there?" the Monitor asked in a different tone.
"I was in the water. Then I went down where the stones were broken, and found a passage going upward, and then I found a hole in the wall and went into a cavern."
"Was it this cavern?"
In the crystal, he saw a tiny Thorinn sitting on the floor with treasures heaped around him. "Here, that's odd," he heard his own voice say.
"Yes," he said. The picture disappeared.
"And where did you go from there?"
"Through the roof, into a great tunnel."
"Was it a tunnel like this?"
In the crystal, he saw the vast arcs of light running away into the distance.
"Yes."
"And from there?"
"I fell into a shaft when a bird attacked me." He dared to add: "Was it your bird?"
"Yes." In the crystal, Thorinn saw himself toppling from the ledge, gaping in horror; the image expanded, blurred, and he was looking down the shaft, watching his own receding body as it floated downward, dwindling to a point, gone.
"And then?" the Monitor demanded.
"I fell into a place at the side of the shaft."
"Was it this place?"
In the crystal, he saw the ribbed floor and ceiling, the three doors at the end. "Yes. I went through one of those doors."
In the crystal, he saw the bare platform. "And from there?"
"I went into a room. Yes, that one." He saw the broken metal, the burst ceiling.
"And from there?"
"I found a passage that took me to another tunnel, and then a shaft into a cavern. From there I went through a hole in the sky into a passage, and then a tunnel, and then your engine took me prisoner. Then I woke up in another cavern, and then I got out through the waterfall."
"How did you know that the waterfall would stop if you made fire?" Thorinn peered up at the Monitor. There was certainly something about him that was like the false images in the crystal, and for that matter, it was odd that he could stand on the floor, with his robes hanging straight, when all else was afloat in the air. "Well," Thorinn said, "if it didn't, the people there would have drowned, because it kept on raining." Feeling a little bolder, he asked, "Why are you so afraid of fire?"
World and Thorinn Page 19