by Gene Wolfe
Nor was that all. Printing tens of thousands of words would surely require hundreds of reusable letters, and perhaps a thousand or more. In the shop I had visited with my father, they had made their letters by pouring molten metal into metal molds. (This reminded me of Chenille’s description of the way in which the heads of taluses are made, and I found and reread it.) The metal, which I recalled seeing a woman heat in an iron ladle held in a charcoal fire, had appeared to be pure silver when it was poured; but my father had said that it was mostly lead.
That in turn reminded me of a conversation a week earlier with Sinew, who delighted in discussing weapons of every kind and was prone to pontificate about them. I had urged that needlers were better suited to conditions here than slug guns, if only because the projectile fired was a simple, slender cylinder, not gready different from a short piece of wire. We owned a slug gun as well, the one with which Nettle had fired on the pirates, and although the gun itself was considerably simpler than a needier, every shot required a separate casing and a multitude of other parts that could be used only once: a dot of special chemical in a tiny copper cup, an explosive to propel the slug, the slug itself, and a disk of stiff paper, heavily waxed, with which to seal the casing-this last (I said) being the only item on the entire list that we ourselves could supply.
Sinew had disagreed. “Some man in town gave Gadwall a couple of needles and told him to make him some iron ones. He did, too. He cut them out of a thin rod he had and rolled them between red-hot plates and polished them. He showed them to me, and the real needles. His looked like the real thing. I couldn’t tell them apart. But when you put them in a needier, they wouldn’t shoot. Gadwall said you could have dropped in that many straws and done every bit as well.”
I started to object, but Sinew interrupted.
“Slug guns are different. We’re already making slug guns that work. In that book you and Mother wrote, you have one of the soldiers tell somebody his slugs are made of some stuff I never heard of.”
I agreed. “Yes, depleted uranium. That was what Silk said he said.”
“Well, I don’t know what that is. But I know the slugs they make in town are lead. You know about the silver mine they found up in the mountains?”
“I know everybody’s talking about one. I haven’t been there, but it sounds very promising.”
“Yeah.” He was silent for a moment, and I could see the dream of finding such a mine himself in his eyes. “We need a lot of things, and we’ve got to have things to trade for them, stuff that doesn’t take up a lot of room on the boat and won’t spoil. Silver should be perfect. The miners already swap it for whatever they need, like mining tools and powder, and the goldsmiths are making it into rings and stuff so it will bring more. Or you can just swap a little silver bar for twenty times that much iron. It’s better than the paper, all the traders want it.”
“Are you saying that silver can be used in the slug gun cartridges in place of depleted uranium? Or that iron can? Iron would be cheaper, naturally.”
He had shaken his head. “There’s lead in the silver ore. It’s heavier than silver, so the two are pretty easy to separate. So we’ve not only got silver here we’ve got lead, too, and that works great. You can’t trade it, not now anyway, because it’s heavy and nobody wants it much. But it’s a metal you can feed to slug guns, and we’ve got it.”
Lead could be cast into type, even cut into type by hand if the casting proved difficult, and lead was available and cheap. We would not need to start with thousands of movable pieces and print a book. Most people who wanted our paper wanted it for writing letters. We could-we would!-offer them decorated papers. Marrow could have a picture of a vegetable marrow on his paper if he liked, in green or yellow ink. Men named for birds, as Auk had been and Gyrfalcon and Gadwall were, could have a picture of the appropriate bird. Nettle drew very skillfully and had taught Hoof and Hide to draw almost as well as she did. Most women were named for flowers, and flowers were easy to draw (Nettle sometimes sketched them for amusement) and should be easy to print.
I was so excited by the prospect that I would have paced up and down if the size of the sloop had permitted it. As it was, I climbed out on the bowsprit and waved my cap to the empty, rolling sea and the dim and distant land. If the trolling bird was impressed, he showed no signs of it.
Returning to our book (in which I had lost my place) I read as before, often carried away by thoughts of printing and the wonderful possibilities it offered, until I chanced on a passage that caught me up short, the one in which Silk brings the Peace of Pas to the talus he has killed in the tunnels. Many prayers and blessings were already falling into disuse; but Nettle had told me of a woman she knew who had written dozens on sheets of our paper and hung them on the walls in her house to preserve them. Others might do the same, and no doubt some already had; but by printing, such things could not only be saved but disseminated.
Even that was not all. His Cognizance Patera Remora, with whom I hoped to speak again when I reached the town, had a copy of the Chrasmologic Writings he had brought from Viron-it was the book upon which I had sworn my oath. That would give us a third text much longer than the first two; and by printing and selling selections from it, we would not only perpetuate and preserve what foreigners here call the Vironese Faith but propagate it.
It was a thought that gave me pause. If, as so many of us thought, the gods we had known in the Whorl were not to be found here, the Vironese Faith was a lie undeserving of my credence, or anyone’s. For the ten thousandth time I wished with all my heart that Silk had come with us.
* * *
I have found a kind of paint that will stick to the lens of my glasses. It may be no great relief to those to whom I speak-they swear it is not-but it is to me. Returning to this airy bedroom tonight, I admired my reflection like a girl.
When I wrote last, it was about my wish that Silk had come with us, as he had intended to do. How I wish now that I could have brought him with me to Gaon! But I was describing that terrible night on the sloop.
If I slept, Silk might appear in dream, or so I supposed, and unravel the knot of faith for me; if I continued to read, something he had said (first set down in our book by my own hand and now forgotten) might solve everything; but I was no longer sleepy, and the Short Sun was so low already that reading would soon be impossible. I baited my hook and threw it out, and sat in the stern, pondering.
It might well be that Pas and Echidna, and Scylla and her siblings, were gods only in the Long Sun Whorl. That, I felt fairly confident, had been Silk’s opinion; but Silk’s opinion had been expressed before our lander left the Whorl. It was at least possible that we had somehow brought them with us, as Remora alleged. He was certainly correct in one sense: people who had revered those gods through half a lifetime, as so many had, had carried them to Blue in their hearts.
What was it Sinew had said?
That if Pas were truly a god he could come here whenever he wished, or go anywhere. If Silk was right, and Pas did not leave the Long Sun Whorl, it could only be because he did not want to. Or (Pas had been murdered with apparent success by his wife and children, after all) because he was somehow prevented by the other gods. The same might be said of Echidna, Scylla, and the rest-but if they restrained Pas, who restrained them? It might easily be that the gods were in fact present, remaining unknown to us because we lacked the Sacred Windows through which they had spoken at home.
There was one at least whom even Silk had expected to find here. The Outsider was so called, in part at least, because he was to be found outside the whorl as well as in it. Presumably he was here, although there was no more evidence to suggest it than there was for presence of the other gods. I had prayed to him occasionally ever since we had landed, in imitation of Silk, although less and less often as I found my prayers unavailing as the years wore on, maintaining the custom of prayer at family meals because I hoped it might promote the moral development of my sons.
Hope.
>
That is the trouble with all prayer. Because we hope, we find success where success is not to be found. How easy it would be for me to write here that Sinew would have been worse without the empty ritual of those prayers! It may be true; but try to find an honest man anywhere who would willingly say that Sinew’s moral development ever benefited from anything.
He was brave on Green, at least, and loyal for a time.
* * *
As for the gods that Sinew proposed on the night that I left Lizard, the original gods of this whorl of Blue, I asked myself then how much power they can have possessed, and whether they would not have saved at least a few of their worshippers if they could. I know better now, of course.
When I reached New Viron I asked Remora about it, and to my surprise he took the question very seriously, his long face growing longer still while he tried again and again to push back the lank hair that persisted in falling over his high forehead to obstruct his vision. “The-ah-um,” he said, and managed to load those noises with sacred dignity. “Ah-ah-er.”
“If the gods don’t want to be worshipped, there’s no reason for them to be swayed by our prayers and sacrifices,” I argued. “Therefore, they do, if you will allow that they sometimes answer prayers, as I know you will, Your Cognizance. Granting that, they ought-”
“Hum-ha!” It had been intended as an interruption, and I stopped talking.
“Logic, hey? Yes, um, logic. You said logic like a god. In your book, hey? You had Silk say it.”
It had been an idea Silk had once expressed to me, and I thought it might well have occurred to him when he climbed the insurgents’ barricade; but I did not trouble Remora with all that.
“Your god, um, logic, betrays you.”
I told him I did not see how.
“Ah-multiplely. In diverse ways, eh? To, ah, begin. There are many-yes, many-here who, er, do not. They offer no sacrifices. Nor do they attend sacrifice, hey? Never come to the manteion. I, um, inquire when it is, um, not unwelcome, concerning private prayer and-ah-special devotions. No. None. I-ah-credit it, for the most part.”
I nodded. “So would I, Your Cognizance.”
“Not worshippers, eh? Numbers, ah, fluctuate. Well known in the Chapter back home, eh? Much piety sometimes. In, er, time of test. Trial, hey? Floods might be-ah-instanced. Fires. Plagues. Wars. Or after a theophany, hey? At others, but little.” He lifted his hand and let it fall. “Up and down, eh? You follow me?”
I nodded again.
“Suppose it dropped to, er, nought. Zero. Not a single spirit, eh? Not a one. Never here, long as I live. Um-no. But suppose. No worshippers. Might not these-ah-foreign deities which you, um, suggest take the occasion to, ah, scourge?”
“It doesn’t seem likely,” I objected
“Hum? I beg to differ. Likely enough. Only too, ah, likely, I should say. Let us continue. You, er, we assume they are-um-deceased. These Vanished People, eh? The whorl is-ah-commodious? Voluminous? Extensive. You agree?”
“I suppose it is.”
“Capital. We progress. There is another, um, factor. No skylands, eh? Only, ah, stars there, as they are called. Whorl at home bent upwards, hey? Revealed itself to, ah, the eyes. This the, er, contrary. Reverse. Bent down. You, um, arrived via water?”
“Yes,” I said, and I told him what had happened on the sloop.
“Indeed, indeed! Capital! One prayer, eh? Only one, and, er, small faith, as you confess. Concede. See what one small prayer can do.” He rocked gleefully, his blue-veined fingers gripping the armrests of his chair.
I said forcefully that if the leatherskin had come in answer to my prayer I would just as soon as the Outsider had ignored it.
“Ingratitude. Rampant everywhere.” Remora shook his head. “But we-ah-digress. Yes, digress. You came by, um, sea. This is established. You must have observed that most of this-ah-fo-reign whorl. Concealed. Not like home, eh? You conceive that its former- um-population dead, eh? Extinct. Everyone does, even, er, myself. Ask how I know, and I am-ah-constrained to respond that I do not. I, um, assume it. You-ah-similarly? Synonymously, eh?”
I nodded, wondering how to ask him what I most desired to know.
Now I must ready myself to cut the throat of a stonebuck for Echidna, and prepare my homily.
* * *
I see that I have mentioned my prayer on the sloop without saying anything substantive about it.
The truth is that I grew frightened. The Short Sun was setting without the least hint of a breeze, and the fishing line I had put out had caught nothing. With the water and food I had brought, I could spend one more day sitting in an idle boat with some comfort, but after that the matter would become serious. I had been thinking about the gods, as I have indicated already. I decided to venture a prayer. After all, if the gods I addressed did not hear it, was that my fault or theirs? The only question was which I should address, and I soon found that I could make convincing arguments for three.
First, Pas. He was the greatest of all, and it seemed that Silk might have influence with him. Silk had been my staunch friend, as well as my teacher.
An even better case might be made for Scylla. I had come from her sacred city, where I was born; and I was trying to reach New Viron, which is her town as well, at least nominally. Besides which, she is the goddess of water, and I was on the water and would soon be in need of drinking water.
Last the Outsider, whose case was nearly as good. Of the three, he seemed most apt to hear my prayer. No god, perhaps, had much reason to think well of me; but he had more than any other. Also, he had been Silk’s favorite, and when Silk did not say that he trusted no god at all (which to tell the truth he frequently did) he said that the Outsider was the only god he trusted.
To be safe, I decided to address all three jointly. I knelt, and found myself tongue-tied. How could I address those three as a group? Pas might or might not be Silk, in part at least. Sinew had been quite correct about that. From what Auk and Chenille had told Nettle and me, Pas’s daughter Scylla was willful, violent, and vindictive. If ever a goddess seemed apt to resent being put in second place, it was she.
The Outsider seemed to me at that time as faceless and mysterious as the god or gods of the ancient inhabitants of this whorl we call Blue. He was, moreover, the god of outcasts and outlaws, of the broken and discarded. I considered myself neither an outcast nor an outlaw; and far from being discarded, I was about to undertake a mission of utmost importance for my town. Such being the case, what could I find to say to him? That I had no claim on his benevolence, but hoped for his help without one?
In the end, I prayed to whatever god might hear, stressing the helplessness and hopelessness we settlers felt, who had left our manteions and their Sacred Windows behind us, with so much else that we held dear, in obedience to Pas. A wind from the west, north, or east would be of greatest service to me, I told the hypothetical god. I had to go to New Viron, and eventually reach Pajarocu-a town quite unknown to me-before its lander lifted off. The feeblest breeze would be more than welcome, if only it would move my boat.
Had I ended my prayer there, I might have saved myself an infinity of fear and dismay; but I did not. Out of my heart I spoke of my loneliness and of the feelings of isolation that had swept over me as I waited half a day and more for a change in weather. Then I promised to learn all that I could about the Outsider and the gods of this whorl, to honor Pas and Scylla most highly if I ever returned to the whorl in which I was born, and to do anything in my power to bring them both here if they were not here already. I also (but this was to myself) solemnly swore to buy sweeps when I got to New Viron; and I recited every prayer that I could recall.
All this, as you may imagine, occupied quite some time. When I lifted my head at last, it was already shadelow, with only the smallest crescent of the Short Sun visible above the western horizon. Day was passing; but something else had gone before it, or so I felt. For what must have been half a dozen minutes, I watched the Short Sun set and look
ed about me, hoping to learn what it had been. The sloop seemed unchanged, with only a trifle more water in its bilge than there had been after I had bailed it. The sky was darker, and its few clouds ruddy in place of white, but that was only to be expected. The dim and distant shore of Main (I thought of it as distant, at least) was nearly black now, but otherwise the same.
At length it came to me: the trolling seabird had vanished. I had complained, most probably to no god at all, of loneliness. I had begged for company. And the only living thing in sight had been taken away. Here was proof of the cruelty of the gods, or of their absence from the whorl to which their king and father had consigned us.
Thinking of it I began to laugh, but was interrupted by a loud plop as my fishing float was jerked beneath the silvery surface. I reached for the line. It broke and vanished before I could touch it, leaving me with two slack cubits or so tied to a belaying pin. I was still staring down at the water when the sloop rocked so violently that I was almost thrown overboard.
The horror of it will never leave me entirely. Looking behind me, I saw great, coarse claws, each as thick as the handle of our ax, scrabbling for hold on the port gunwale and rowling its wood like so many gouges. A moment later the head appeared and shot toward me, the clash of its three jaws like the slamming of double doors. I threw myself backward to escape it, and fell into the sea.
I nearly drowned. Not because of the roughness of the water-there was none-nor because of the weight of tunic, trousers, and boots; but out of sheer panic. The leatherskin would release its hold on the sloop, swim under it, and kill me in a second or two; it seemed completely certain, and paralyzed by terror as I was, I was unable to conceive of an escape and equally unable to ready myself for death. Surely, these were the longest moments of my life.