On Blue's waters

by Gene Wolfe

  “She’ll have Babbie to protect her.”

  “So much for a life of woodsy freedom. You wanted to know how to get there. Up the river, right at the first fork and left at the second. I know that’s not what your map shows, but I followed the rivers to get back here. That’s it, and a long fly it was.”

  “Do you think they’ll let three of us, all supposedly from New Viron, have places on the lander?”

  Krait nodded. “It’s barely half full, I told you that, and they’ll want to go before winter, since nobody’s likely to come after the bad weather sets in. The ones who are there already are getting impatient, too. If they wait much longer, they’ll be losing more than they gain.”

  Evensong came. This time I watched her slip through my window. When peace returns (if it does) I’m going to have another sentry in the garden. Or bars on these windows. Bars would be more practical, I suppose, but I cannot forget how I hated the bars on the windows of my manse.

  I told her that it would be hours yet, and I wanted to get a few hours sleep before we went out. She said she did, too, but her sister-wives would not let her. She asked who would wake us when it was time, and I told her I would wake myself.

  As I now have. We will go soon. I will wake Evensong and give her the note I have prepared, a blank piece of paper with a seal. She will leave by the window, bring her note to the sentry at my door, and demand to be admitted. He will refuse. I will open my door (pretending that their voices have awakened me), look at her paper, get dressed, and leave with her. We will meet the head gardener at the lower gate.

  Just writing those words made me think of the garden at my manteion at home. We sprats said Patera Pike’s garden, and then almost without a pause to catch breath, Patera Silk’s. With barely another pause, we are old, the garden a ruin (I sat there for a while just the same), and that spot, in which some nameless much earlier augur had made his garden, a hundred thousand leagues away or some such ridiculous number. “Do you imagine that a man of your age will find another woman as young as she is?” Krait asked me. He wanted her on the lander, of course; I know that now. “Or one as beautiful?” Trying to be gallant, I told him there were no other women as beautiful as Seawrack.

  Nor are there.

  Evensong is as young-I would not be surprised if she were a year or two younger. Nettle was never beautiful or even pretty, but my heart melted each time she smiled. It would melt again if I could see her smile tonight.

  I must have a needier, and get it without taking it from someone who will use it against the enemy.

  We cannot surrender. I cannot. Because I could not leave Pig blind, these people were able to bring me here, and so ended any chance of success I might have had. You could argue that I owe them nothing, and in a sense I believe that it is true; but to say that I owe them nothing is one thing, and to say that they deserve to be despoiled, raped, and enslaved is another and a very different thing.

  All this time I have tried to be Silk for them. I have thought of Silk day and night-what would he do? What would he say under these circumstances? On what principles would he make his decision? Yet to every such question there is just the one answer: he would do what was right and good, and in doubt, he would side against his own interests. That is what I must do.

  What I will do. I will try to be what he tried to be. He succeeded, after all.

  I have been pacing up and down this big bedroom. This palatial bedroom my oppressors built for me. Pacing in my slippers, so as not to wake Evensong or let the guard at my door know I am awake. When I came here I was a prisoner-a prisoner who was respected, true. I was treated with great kindness and even reverence by Hari Mau and his friends, but I was a prisoner just the same. I knew it, and so did they.

  Let me be honest with myself, tonight and always. With myself most of all. That has changed, had changed even before the war. I am their ruler, their caldé. I could leave here at any time, simply by putting a few things into saddlebags, mounting, and riding away. No one would lift a finger to stop me. Who would dare?

  I said I could; but I cannot. A prisoner is free to get away if he can. I am no prisoner, and so I cannot. I said I owed them nothing; let that stand. Better-I owe this town and its collective population nothing, because I was taken from the Whorl against my will. But what about the individuals who make up the town? Do I owe Hari Mau and my troopers nothing? Men I have bled with?

  What about Bahar? (I take one example where I might have a hundred.) He was one of those who forced me to come here. At my order he bought a boat, boarded it, and left his native place, reminding me forcefully of a man named Horn I used to know. I have not the slightest doubt that he has been working at his task, and doing it as well as it can be done. Three boatloads of good, simple, cheap food so far, and it would not surprise me if three more docked tomorrow. At my order he went without a word of protest, leaving his shop to his apprentices. Do I owe Bahar nothing?

  Say I do. It is wrong, but say it.

  What about my wives? Pehla and Alubukhara are with child. I have lain beside every one of them, and whispered words of love that to many men mean nothing at all. Am I, their husband, to be numbered among those men?

  I say that I am not. Neither were the teachings I tried to pass along to my sons things that I myself did not believe. I am a bad man, granted. Sinew always thought so, and Sinew was right. I am no Silk, but am I as bad as that? I left Nettle, but I did not leave her to be raped and murdered.

  Lastly, Evensong and all the people of Han. Say that she counts only as a wife, that she means no more to me than Chandi. Does she mean less? She has a mother and a father, brothers and sisters, two uncles and three aunts, all of whom she loves. They are at the mercy of a tyrant, and if Gaon loses or surrenders they will remain at his mercy.

  If we win, there will be no difficulty about getting a needier, or anything.

  I have been writing here, I see, about that town on the river. It seems so very long ago.

  Where did I put Maytera’s eye? In the top drawer at the back, to be sure. Should I put it in a saddlebag now? How happy she will be!

  And my robe. I must have my robe and the corn. Where is that?

  Found it-back of wardrobe. I put Olivine’s eye in the pocket. On Green I learned the secret the inhumi wish nobody to know. I promised not to reveal it, but who will ever read this, besides me? Although I swore, I did not swear not to reveal my oath. I can threaten them as well as save them, and I will do both.

  We must win this war.

  Then I will go home.

  -13-

  BROTHERS

  After writing those words, “Then I will go home,” I threw away the last of Oreb’s quills. I am writing with the gray feather of a goose now, like other men. And there is so much to write about before the great day comes-the day when I can leave this place-that I hardly know how to begin.

  That small boy, the gardener’s grandson, said I was the Decider. One of the things I must decide (one of the smallest and least important) is how much I should set down before I go. Since I fully intend to carry this account away with me, you may say that it makes very little difference what I decide; but I enjoy a certain rounding out in such things, a sense of completion. Clearly I cannot set down everything, but I hope to carry it to the point at which the lander left Blue. There were many days on the lander that I would far rather forget. Surely the best way is to end before I reach those; and after that I will write no more.

  Before I begin, however, I ought to write about what the three of us did last night. That, at least, will not take long. Everything went as planned-Evensong bringing the note, and so on. The head gardener was there to meet us, leading a scrawny, docile old cow. Off we splashed through the warm rain. Prying up the stone was a good deal more difficult than I had anticipated, I having seen four workmen handle those stones without much trouble. I do not think the gardener and I could have managed without Evensong’s help. With it, we scarcely got it up. He dug. He has been digging all his
life, and he knows his business.

  I had half expected to find no more than the corpse, a thing like a dried jellystar, of someone like Krait. It was an inhuma, and seemed more nearly the mummified remains of a child. Possibly she tried to make me think she was human, as they commonly do, even as I lifted her from her grave. If she did, she succeeded horribly.

  Evensong and I tried to talk to her. (I had meant for Evensong to keep watch, but it was raining so hard that I could scarcely see the cow. She could not have seen someone coming until he bumped into her.) It was hopeless; the inhuma was too weak to speak a word. I put her on the cow’s back and pressed her mouth to the unlucky cow’s neck. I have washed my hands a dozen times since.

  She fed for what seemed to us, soaked and steaming as all three of us were, a very long time. She became somewhat larger, and perhaps somewhat lighter in color, although it was not easy to tell by the light of Mehman’s sputtering lantern; but that was all.

  Then…

  I doubt that I can set it down in ink in any meaningful way-I wish I could make you see it as we did. Two things happened at once, but I cannot write about them both at once; one must be first and the other second. Nettle, will you ever read this? What will you think of me?

  The rain stopped in an instant, the way rain often does here. At one moment it was pouring. At the next the only drops that fell were those that trickled from the roofs of the shops around the market square. At that instant the inhuma slipped off the old cow’s back, and when her feet touched stone there was no inhuma. In her place stood a woman a little taller than Evensong, an emaciated woman with burning eyes whose hairless skull somehow conveyed the impression of lank reddish hair. I put my chain around her neck and snapped the lock, and for an instant felt something quite different.

  I said, “You must be wondering why we released you.”

  “No.” She looked down into the grave in which she had been imprisoned. “Don’t you want to fill that up before someone sees it?”

  We did, and before the work was complete Evensong and I were ready to jump out of our skins when Mehman dropped his spade. I had intended to talk to the inhuma there, but had assumed that the rain would continue; it would have been madness to do it when the rain had stopped. After a little discussion we decided to go to Mehman’s cottage, at the farther end of my garden.

  The cow made everything much more difficult; she was almost too weak to stand. Mehman would have left her where she was, but I would not hear of it, wanting nothing left behind that would draw attention to the spot. Our prisoner offered to return a little of the blood she had taken; but however deceived by her appearance I may have been, her eyes told me what she intended, and I would not permit it.

  Eventually we got the cow into my garden, shut the gate, and let her lie down. This morning Mehman was to take her to the stables and tell the stableman that I have decided to take her in and care for her. It is a thing that pious people here do occasionally.

  He and Evensong waited outside while I explained what I had learned from Krait on Green. I tapped the window when I had finished, and they came in again. “Will you do whatever we tell you, if I release you?” I asked the inhuma. “Or shall I make good on my threat?”

  She said nothing in reply, her face buried in her hands-a naked, hairless, reptilian thing in woman’s shape, stripped for the moment of all her pride. Mehman and Evensong positioned their chairs a half step behind mine and sat in silence, watching her.

  “I warn you, if you will not I am going to spread my knowledge everywhere. I will be believed, because I am ruler here.”

  The face she lifted was a woman’s once more, beautiful and depraved. “What do you want from me?” Her eyes were green, or if they were not, they appeared so.

  “You are quick.” I sat too, drew my sword, and laid it across my lap.

  “I used to be. Tolerably so.” Her bony shoulders rose and fell, much narrower shoulders than Seawrack’s, and thinner than hers had ever been. Skeletal.

  Mehman stood, having remembered his duties as host. “You will honor me by drinking tea, Rajan?”

  Seeing that it would please him, I nodded and asked him to bring me a bowl of warm water, soap, and a clean towel as well.

  “Tea for the rani?” He bowed to Evensong; when I was newly come it never occurred to me that my wives would be awarded the title of the ruler of Trivigaunte.

  Evensong nodded and smiled, and Mehman bowed again and bustled away.

  “I’d ask you how long you were in the ground under that stone, if I thought you knew,” I told our prisoner, “but I don’t see how you could.”

  She shook her head. “Years, I think.”

  “So do I. Is your word good?”

  “Freely given to you? Yes.”

  “Then give me your word that you will do exactly as I order you.”

  She shook her head more vigorously, so much so that the chain clanked and rattled. “It would be worth nothing at all as long as I have to wear this. Take it away, and my oath will bind me.”

  I got out the key, but Evensong caught my hand.

  The inhuma began, “You were surprised that I didn’t want to know why you had-had…”

  Her emotion may have been feigned, although I doubt it.

  “I wasn’t free. You had locked this thing around my neck. Take it away.”

  Motioning for Evensong to remain where she was, I did.

  “I will obey you in all things, Rajan,” the inhuma declared. She rubbed her neck as if the chain had chafed it, and although they were faint I could see scales where pores should have been. I glanced at the window, and found that it was gray now instead of black.

  I said, “You give me your word for that?”

  “Yes.” Even knowing that her empty jade eyes and hollow cheeks were more than half illusion, I pitied the face I saw. “You have my word, unless you command me to go back into that place of living death.”

  “I won’t. And when you have completed the task I’ll give you, I’m going to let you go.”

  Evensong made a little sound of displeasure. “I don’t like it either,” I said, “but what else can I do? Kill her after she’s fought for us?”

  The inhuma made me a seated bow that may or may not have been mockery.

  Because I thought it would be better to wait for Mehman to return, I said, “It’s just occurred to me that you inhumi are rather like a kind of lizard I’ve noticed in my garden. It can change colors, and because of its size and shape, and because it remains so still, it is easy to take one for a piece of brown bark, or a green leaf, or even the flesh-colored petal of a rose. While I acknowledge that you inhumi are a much higher form of life, it seems to me that the principle is about the same.”

  I expected her to say that we three were merely large monkeys without tails (as Krait would have), which would have been at least as just; but she only nodded. “You are correct, Rajan.”

  Evensong said, “Pehla showed me one of those. They catch insects with their tongues.”

  The inhuma nodded as before. “We do the same, rani. You haven’t asked my name, or given me yours.”

  Evensong introduced herself. I explained to her that I had not inquired about the inhuma’s name because I knew that any name she gave us would be false, at which the inhuma said, “Then my name in this town of yours shall be False. Is that how you say it?” Mehman came in just then with my water, soap, and towel. “I have no tray, Rajan. I am shamed.”

  “I am shamed, not you,” I told him. “I ought to have paid you better, and I will. I’ll give you a tray, too. This inhuma would like us to call her by a name that means false or lying. Something like that. What would it be?”

  “Jahlee.”

  “Thank you. Jahlee, this man is Mehman. Mehman, we will call this evil woman Jahlee, as you suggest.”

  He bowed to her.

  “Jahlee,” I said, “you are not to harm Mehman or any of his people.”

  “I am your slave.”

 
“Look at him carefully. Neither Evensong nor I are typical of the mass of people here, but he is. He is a typical citizen of our town, tall and dark, with a nose, eyes, mouth, and so on quite a bit like mine.”

  “I have seen others, Rajan.”

  “Good. These are my people. Under no circumstances whatsoever are you to harm any of them. If you do, you know what I will do.”

  “I do, Rajan. But I must live.”

  “You must do more, as we both understand. I’m about to get to that.”

  Evensong said, “Suppose another inhuma comes here and hurts someone. We might think it was her.”

  “We might indeed. Because we might she will warn the other inhumi to keep away, if she is wise. Jahlee, Evensong is from a different town, a foreign town called Han, with which our own town is at war. She is a young woman of Han, more attractive than most.”

  The starved and empty eyes fastened upon Evensong’s face. “I understand, Rajan.”

  “You are not to attack the common people of Han, or of any other town. You may attack any and all of the troopers fighting against us, however. They are fair game for you.”

  Jahlee started to object, but fell silent.

  “There are more than enough for you. You may also attack their animals, if you wish.”

  She shook her head. “That is most gracious, Rajan. But I will not.”

  “Sarcasm will win you no friends here.”

  “Is it possible for me to win friends, Rajan?”

  “Not like that. Will you attack the troopers from Han, as I have suggested?”

  “I am your slave. But it would be better if I had clothes.” With both hands, she smoothed her starved body, a body that appeared wholly human. “A wig or headdress of some sort, too. Powder, rouge, and scent.”

  I glanced at Evensong, who nodded and hurried out.

  “A few gauds, Rajan, if it’s not asking too much.”

  “She will think of that, I’m sure. She’s an intelligent young woman.”

  Mehman re-entered with a steaming teapot and two cups, and I assured him that Evensong would be back soon.