The Luck of Brin's Five

by Wilder, Cherry;

  One night, while the last of the little darkness still held, I was awakened by a cry. Narneen was sitting up in the sleeping bag crying out for a bad dream. I told her to lie down again, but she would not. She cried out, between sleeping and waking, until Brin came to her. I was burrowing down to sleep again, but the talking did not stop and someone brought up Diver’s magic lights.

  “. . . no dream,” sobbed Narneen, “for I can listen again!”

  “You were questioned?” asked Brin.

  “There were two, and they asked my name and my Five name.”

  I was wide awake now. We all sat round Narneen, my young sib, and she had a staring, strange look in the cool light. Old Gwin had begun to chant softly under her breath, a chant of praise for a blessing.

  “What does it mean?” asked Diver at my elbow.

  “I think it means that Narneen is a Witness. Some other Witness has found and questioned her.”

  Brin had her recite all that had happened from the beginning.

  “I thought it was a dream,” said Narneen. “I was called, and I answered to my name. Then the questioning went on, and it was inside my head.”

  “It is a blessing,” said Old Gwin, “a power wanting in our family since my mother’s birth Five, Abirin’s Five. Go on, child . . .”

  “There is a Witness,” said Narneen, “a female. One other questions through the Witness, for she asks always on behalf of another and sometimes speaks aside. She called first of all, ‘Narneen, Narneen’; then when I replied, she asked my age and my Five name.”

  “I don’t like this! This is mere sleep-spying!” said the Harper.

  “I think you are right,” said Brin, “and it is pure chance that Narneen has strong powers and can wake and tell us what has happened.”

  Diver was baffled by all this, and we made shift to explain. The minds of all Moruians have this linking power, especially strong in childhood . . . the same power, I supposed, by which the Maker of Engines made contact with me upon the rock. Children and young persons can also be questioned in sleep, and it has been used for curious purposes, good and evil. In one song the Harper sings, a young weaver is called in her sleep by two hunters: “Will you leave your mother’s mat-loom and look for us at the Family Fair?” But there are also tales of this sleep-spying being used for gain, to find out where a merchant’s treasure is hidden.

  Old Gwin asked: “What did you tell them, child?”

  “My name, my age, my Five name . . . the names of our Five. And then they asked a strange thing. Who was the newest member of our Five. So I told them Tomar, new-shown.”

  “Wait!” said Diver. “Was that what they wanted?”

  “No,” said Narneen shrewdly, “it was you they wanted, Diver dear, for they asked again, ‘Has any stranger come to your Five, little Narneen.’”

  I shivered at this; too many thoughts were reaching out towards our Luck. Narneen turned to me and shook her head. “Don’t be afraid, Dorn,” she said, “for I know this questioner, I know this Witness. They speak the truth when they say they mean us no harm.”

  “What did you answer them?” asked Brin.

  “Nothing more!” said Narneen. “I cried out and broke the link, for I was afraid.”

  “It was right, I suppose,” said Old Gwin, “but remember, child, that a Witness should not lie, in reporting or in any question, mind-to-mind, else your sacred power is betrayed.”

  “Hush,” sighed Mamor, “this is weighty stuff for so young a child. I don’t like this whole business.”

  Then Narneen was given a herb drink to make her sleep; but the rest of us found it hard to settle. Next day we packed up again, cleaned the Ulgan’s house and prepared our new work for market. Mamor made sure the Ulgan’s barge was waterworthy, and Diver prepared the Tomarvan for its journey downriver. I put Tomar on my back in his wicker carrying cradle and went up to the top of the rock, to bid farewell to Whiterock Fold. It was a day of bright sunshine, but to south and north, where we had come and where we were going, the river Troon was lost in shimmering mist.

  When we were back on the barge, I expected another journey like the one from Cullin to Whiterock, long days of sun and shadow on the water. But I quickly learned that every voyage on the river is different and part of the difference is in our mood and understanding as travellers. We came back to the barge in darkness—what was left of it—and loaded our bird, our treasure, by the light of Diver’s torches and swaddled it in the pieces of our tent. One or two fishers passed by as we were working, but there was not much to be seen. The Far Sun was rising, full and silvery, as we cast off, and our spirits began to come up just a little. The Troon took us back kindly, and Gwin’s prayers for a wind were answered.

  We passed more boats . . . they should have been fishers but instead of gray or black they were striped in bright colors. In the Far Sun light we could see the crews winding trails of green and red vines high on the masts and along the sail ropes.

  “What are they doing?” I cried to Brin, as we stood huddled against our wrapped flying machine.

  “What are they doing?” It was Diver asking the same question.

  Mamor, at the tiller, began to laugh. “I didn’t think it would begin so soon!” And the crew of the nearest boat let out a strange hail, almost a high-call.

  “Lee-va-ban Otolor!”

  It was the fair-call, the cry for Otolor Great Fair. Suddenly we were in the midst of a wave of decorated boats . . . barges, fishers, birders, crossing boats, even paddling mats with one bold swimmer and a tail of vines . . . a fleet spread out across the full width of the Troon, stretching downriver as far as we could see.

  “But there are miles to go before we come to the fairground!”

  Still the cry echoed up and down the river. There zig-zagged past a round-bottomed boat full of flowers and drunken shepherds, singing that spring was in the New Year and the New Year was in the spring. We came, with the fleet, to the first hamlet, and then another soon after it, both on the west bank. These places were decorated too and their crossings full of craft, loading up and setting off for the fair. I saw at the second landing stage a family of weavers, true mountain folk and nomads, our own image. I pointed them out to the Harper, who was tuning his instrument in the stern. We watched them and hailed and high-called. There they stood, trembling, about to step on a bird-boat—a sturdy Five, with leggings and a carrying sled of new work, perhaps not as fine as our own. Their hair was tied with bright skeins, and one mother wore a cream vented robe, heavy from her hidden child. Brin held up the wriggling excited Tomar in his little holiday wrapper, and the bush weavers saw us and took heart. Yet already I imagined that they looked upon us strangely . . . we were of them and not of them, in our barge, with its strange cargo and Diver, standing among us in his sun-goggles.

  So it went on, the whole fleet scudding downriver under a fresh breeze, with as much noise as a fairground itself. About the rising of the Great Sun, the wind dropped, and there was a creaking of paddle wheels and much work with the paddles. The barge lumbered along, wedged in the crowd of smaller craft, and the talking and singing flowed naturally from deck to deck. We were excited and looked continually through the boats for Beeth Ulgan or for Gordo her apprentice, who was to meet us at the fair. Harper Roy sang and watched; I knew he had eyes out for trouble, even here. In particular he and I were on the lookout for that watcher . . . the escaped twirler, Petsalee, who might be the Pentroy’s creature. It was difficult in the midst of all this laughter to think of the long shadow cast by Tiath Gargan. We bartered food and ate well. I looked at the water, inching past between the boats, and had a perverse longing for those days alone on the water with only the flatbills for company.

  We knew there would be scarcely any darkness, but it was still difficult to sleep. I dozed, thinking of the white rock and the Maker of Engines. I tried to send out thoughts to this great personage: We are coming. We are on the river, bringing Diver, our Luck, to Otolor Spring Fair. Take care for us.
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  The Tomarvan took up most of our deck space, but there was room for one or two to nap out of the suns’ light in a small tent. In the late afternoon it was my turn to go under the flap; Mamor pushed me in, and I found Tomar, asleep in his basket at last, and Narneen. We were coming to the largest village before Otolor, in a flat calm; there was not a breath of wind on the Troon, and we could hear the creaking of paddles below the shouts and songs of the merrymakers. I lay down and really slept for about an hour, then I woke suddenly with Narneen urgently stroking my cheek.

  “What is it?”

  “Ssh,” she whispered, “let Tomar sleep.” There was a thin, unchildish look about her. “I am called again by the same Witness.”

  “Who is it? Shall I get the others? Is there danger?”

  “No, it is friendly. Dorn . . . I see them. It is two persons, Witness and Questioner. They do not know how clearly I hear and see.”

  “What do they ask?”

  “My Five name, the same as before. What shall I answer?”

  “The truth.” I said. “Remember what Gwin said? But steer clear of our Luck. Narneen . . . I must fetch the others.”

  “No, no . . . you still don’t understand. They are close. We are going to sail past them. They are standing on the east bank by a landing stage, right now.”

  “We could see them!”

  “Yes!” said Narneen, her long eyes blazing. “Go to Diver, get the seeing glass, you know? Look to the landing stage for a tree, and there they stand. The Witness is short, female, wearing a gray tunic like a town worker. The Questioner is male, older, in a straight blue robe and a straw shade-hat with a veil. He wears this. . . .” Narneen drew breath and bit her lips but went on. “He hides his face because it is horribly ugly. It is burned, I think, on one side.”

  “Will you come with me?”

  “I will lie here,” she whispered, “and answer their questions, so that they stand still.”

  I tumbled out onto the deck into the bright sunlight and the singing, paddling riverful of travellers going to the fair. I found Diver beside the wrapped wing of the Tomarvan and gasped it out to him.

  “Where are they?”

  He had the glass and let me search the cast bank. We were past the landing stage of Geelar, the large village, but some way beyond it another small jetty stood out beside a spreading redwood tree on the river’s edge. I shivered although the day was hot. There they stood, exactly as Narneen had described them. I saw the quiet, listening face of the Witness, the odd, straight cut of her short hair, the broad silver band clasped around one sleeve. The Questioner stood like a pillar of gray rock; his face was youngish, pale and fine; the veil of his hat, half drawn, hid any scars. Diver examined them and Brin, when she came up and heard the story. Old Gwin went at once to Narneen in the tent.

  “The Questioner wears a scribe’s pouch,” said Brin. Her voice was hard and angry, full of mistrust.

  “That’s not all . . .” growled Mamor. “I can read the garments of those two like a new skein. They come from Tsagul, the Fire-Town.”

  We were so close now that we scarcely needed the glass to see their features. Instinctively we bent down and approached the tent flap. Narneen lay on her back, eyes wide and sightless, her body stiff. Tomar began whimpering, and I crawled inside and went to him. He chuckled and was happy again when I came to him, and I felt a new love for my younger sib, a comradeship. I was pretty sure he would never become a Witness. Old Gwin prayed continually beside Narneen but did not touch her. After a few long moments Narneen shut her eyes, went limp, then sat up—an ordinary weaver’s child, full of mischief. “They are going,” she said.

  At the same time the Harper gave a whistle from the bows, which meant: “birds flown.” I turned to a hole in the tent and caught a last glimpse, between two boats passing, of the gray-clad Questioner moving away, limping.

  Brin reached into the tent and took Narneen by the hands.

  “Now child,” she said, “you must give account of what passed, like a true Witness.”

  “They asked as before,” said Narneen, “starting with my age and my Five name. And this time I answered all these things truly.”

  “Did they give reasons?”

  “No, but many promises of friendship. The Questioner was very particular about meaning no harm.”

  “What else?”

  “They asked me about Stone Brook. Had I ever lived at Stone Brook on Hingstull, in a cave. And I said indeed I had.”

  We were mystified at this and could find no reason for it.

  “Then they asked the names of all my family, but I did not answer clearly. I sang and said I could not hear the question.”

  “You sang?” asked Diver.

  “I sang inside my head,” said Narneen. “Have you never done it? It blocks questioning. So next they began, gently, to ask all the things we did . . . and I admitted to weaving, of all kinds, and to hunting and to playing harp music. I hope that was not wrong . . .”

  “Of course not,” said Brin, “you have done very well.”

  “But there was more,” said Narneen. “They asked if I could read and I told them truly I knew my woven script and part of the written. Then they went on . . . I agreed that my Five could read and weave message skeins. And they asked about making pictures, drawn pictures, blue ink on white willow paper.”

  Narneen’s voice trembled for the first time and her upper lip crinkled, for weeping. “I said yes, one among us did such drawings. Then I sang and wouldn’t answer, for I remembered . . .”

  Diver gave a startled exclamation in his own tongue. He drew aside and spoke to Brin and Mamor, then turned to comfort Narneen, assuring her that she had done no harm. We all understood, more or less; I saw us in the cave at Stone Brook with the blizzard coming down, teaching Diver new words while he drew us pictures. By some means those pictures had reached this scribe from the Fire-Town.

  “Ah, but they said one other thing that makes it certain,” said Narneen sadly. “They spelled a word to me. They asked if I knew what is M-A-N.” She spoke the sounds in our tongue . . . and we remembered still more. Diver had drawn his own race: a male, a female; then some common objects: a tent, a chair from a fixed house, a sort of wool-deer; and Brin had lettered in our own sounds below his script.

  “I said no more,” said Narneen, “at least I answered no more. But I asked. The Witness is called Onnar; I asked quickly, and she replied before she could think of other things. And the Questioner—”

  “You got his name?” asked Brin.

  “He is Vel Ragan,” said Narneen. She lay back sleepily on the folded bags. “He is a scribe from the Fire-Town, Tsagul. He was surprised when I asked the Witness what burned his face.”

  “What did he reply?” chuckled Gwin. “Cheeky wretch to question a child in this way.”

  “I think he said it was a firestone . . . a clinger.” We shuddered and fell silent at the thought of this terrible violence, brought close to us. Firestone clingers were a fabled device for evil clan-creatures and grandees’ quarrels, not for honest mountain folk.

  I burst out, finally, as I rocked Tomar inside the tent. “But there is still the mystery of how they reached Narneen!”

  “I know the answer to that,” said Diver heavily. So it was explained, and we remembered. Diver had drawn Narneen’s picture, and Brin had marked it with her name.

  “I have brought this upon the child,” said Diver. We all spoke together, reassuring him. We could not bear it when he spoke in this way, or blamed himself.

  “Diver,” said Narneen, “I know one thing . . . they spoke truth. They will do us no harm.”

  The wind had risen, so we could use sail, but still the press of small boats bound for the fair was so heavy we could make no speed at all. When I put Tomar on my back and went on deck, the land had changed around us. We were sailing through tamed country, with fence ropes and bird farms and food gardens on either side of the river. I found Diver sitting astern beside the shaded spinn
er-basket, lifting the flap to give them sun, as Gwin had taught him to do. An ancient weaver, on the deck of a bird boat, cried out to him: “Two new hatched . . . for a whole keg of good sunner?”

  “Forgive us!” said Diver. “These beauties are not for sale.”

  “Too bad,” cackled the ancient, turning back to his braiding frame. “Ours died a’winter.”

  I sat on the deck, with Tomar between my knees playing with a string of dried seed gourds. My sib was strong and brown, with his first-fur already lifting. There was no doubt that we had the best baby and the best Luck and the best barge and even the best spinners in the world. Far in the distance, between the bird farm nets and the no-fishing skeins, I could see one, two balloons tethered, riding above the walls of the city of Otolor. The Bird Clan was near.

  VI

  The Launcher wore a scarlet robe, kilted up with a cord under his belly, to show his fat, pasty legs and leather boots.

  “Va-ban!” he shouted in a voice of thunder. The Bird Clan vassals heaved on the ropes; Diver, Mamor and the Harper steadied the framework. Tomarvan slid up the ramp to the level of the Bird Clan grounds. The vassals lifted it bodily onto the wheeled wicker cradle and trundled our precious bird into the enclosure. The Launcher surveyed it calmly, hands on his waist.

  “Cullin!” he cried. “Where in blazes will they come from next! Every bush weaver is Antho, this time o’ year. And why don’t ye fly it in . . . eh? eh? Because the flaming thing won’t fly, do you suppose?”

  “It will fly,” said Diver.

  He loomed up at the Launcher’s side, and the fellow flinched at his height. Diver looked as impressive as we could make him; it was a time for dressing-up, not for hiding away. He wore his own blue suit and, as a cloak, a magnificent silk hanging, one of Gwin’s treasures, ordered and not paid for, long ago, by Elbin Tsatroy, a mad old grandee, one of the last of her clan. The fire clan emblem blazed forth, flame on ochre; suns and stars whirled over the silk. I wondered, each time I saw it, how Gwin and her first-family, Tarr’s Five, could weave and embroider such a fiery piece of work. Diver’s hair was a sandy red; his hood was pale blue, over a basket helm, worn by fliers, and he had his own goggles.