by Gene Wolfe
His companion was about to tell him to go ahead, and to remark that the coming storm was probably what the donkeys had been afraid of earlier, when Oreb swooped to a hard landing upon his shoulder, croaking, "Man come! Big man!"
"Pig? Where is he?"
"Big big! Watch out!"
"Believe me, I'll be as careful as possible. Where is he?"
"No, no!" Oreb fluttered to keep his balance in the wind.
"You don't have to come with me, but where did you see him?"
"In back. Bird show." Oreb darted forward, flapping hard into the wind's eye, no higher than his owner's knees. The faint light of the lantern faded and was gone as Hound led his donkeys into the ruined villa.
"Come bird!" Oreb called through the darkness.
"Yes! I am!"
"Good Silk!" The hoarse croak was almost lost in the roaring of the wind. "Watch out!"
His probing staff found nothing until a huge hand closed around him, its grip enveloping him from shoulder to waist.
"Would you have light?" The godling's voice mingled with distant thunder; it was as if the coming storm had spoken.
The man the godling had addressed gasped.
"I will burn this house for you, holy one, if you wish."
He found it impossible to think, almost impossible to speak. "If you tighten your grip, I'll be killed."
"I will not tighten my grip. Will you sit upon my palm, holy one? You must not fall."
"Yes," he said. "I-yes."
Something pressed his feet; his knees, which he could not have kept straight, bent. The hand that had grasped him relaxed, sliding upward and away. He groped the hard, uneven surface on which he had been seated, discovering that it fell away half a cubit to his left and right, found the great fingers (each as wide as his head) curled behind him. "Oreb?"
It had emerged as a whisper; he had intended a shout. He filled his lungs and tried again. "Oreb!"
"Bird here." Here was clearly a considerable distance.
"Oreb, come to me, please."
He was conscious of the wind, cool and violent, threatening with gusts to blow him from his precarious seat.
"Hurt bird?"
"No!" He cleared his throat. "You know I won't hurt you."
"Big man. Hurt bird?"
The deep voice rumbled out of the darkness again. "If you fall…" Lightning gleamed on the horizon. For a fraction of a second it revealed a face as large as Echidna's had been in the Sacred Window so long ago: tiny eyes, nostrils like the lairs of two beasts, and a cavernous mouth. "I cannot catch you."
"Please." He gasped for breath, fighting the feeling that the wind blew every word to nothing. "You said I could have light. If I wanted it. I have a lantern. May I light it?"
"As you say, holy one." It was a hoarse whisper, like a distant avalanche.
He had shoved his own lantern into a pocket when he had seen Hound lighting his; now he fumbled with it and with the striker, nearly dropping both.
"It is very small, holy one." There was a faint note of amusement in the terrifying rumble this time.
"That's all right," he said, with a growing sense of relief. "So am I." White sparks cascaded onto the trembling wick. It was as if there were shooting stars in his hands, like the stars at the bottom of the grave to which Silk and Hyacinth had driven Orpine's body in a dream he recalled with uncanny clarity.
Here we dig holes in the ground for our dead, he thought, to bring them nearer the Outsider; and on Blue we do the same because we did it here, though it takes them away from him.
The yellow flame of the candle rose; he shut his lantern, mesmerized by the end of the godling's thumb, the smoothly rounded face of a faceless man wearing a peaked hat that was in fact a claw.
"You see me." The gigantic speaker sounded faintly pleased.
"Yes. You could see me before."
Slowly the great face descended. Slowly it rose, as a large boat might have in a long swell.
"Like Oreb. Oreb can see even when it seems to me that there's no light at all."
There was no reply, and he wondered whether the godling had heard him. "Oreb's eyes are larger than mine," he continued gamely, "though Oreb is so much smaller. Your eyes seem very small to me, but that's only because they are small in proportion to your face. Each must be the size of Oreb's head."
Rain fell like a lash.
"You speak too fast, holy one," the godling rumbled.
And it must seem to you that we move very fast as well, he reflected. That we dart about like squirrels or rabbits.
"Are you in danger, holy one? I will protect you."
"No." He held up the light, his sodden tunic clinging to his arm. This was better-far better-than the sewer on Green.
"Are you in need, holy one? I will supply you."
"That is good of you." He struggled to make himself heard.
"Bird here!" Oreb landed heavily on his head, and every limb jerked with terror. "Wet wet!" A fine spray of water joined the rain as Oreb shook himself and fluttered his wings.
"Getting in under the fingers, aren't you?"
"Good bird! Good Silk!"
Suddenly contrite, he spoke slowly to the godling. "You've made a shelter for me, and even let Oreb share it. Am I-are we keeping you out in this?"
Again the rumble seemed slightly amused, although he could not be sure he was not imagining it. "I do not suffer, holy one." There was pause in which the huge face, lit faintly from below, regarded him. "Are you in need?"
"No." It was still difficult for him to speak.
"The rest are to stay," the godling rumbled. Its breath, hot, moist, and fetid, pierced the wind; and lightning flashed as it spoke, starkly revealing colorless skin splashed with inky shadows. "Enough have gone. Tell the rest to stay. That is what I have come to tell you. Silk says it."
7. DRINKING COMPANIONS
We have made the experiment, and the experiment has failed. That is the truth, so that is how I must look at it. All my planning-I shall be honest: all my scheming-has gone for nothing. I must devise a new approach.
When I was in Blanko, Fava and I found that when my mind was joined with hers we, and anyone else who was in our company, could travel in spirit. We went to Green; and later Jahlee, the Duko, Hide, and I, with some others, went to the great city of the Red Sun Whorl. We were able to, I believe, because the Duko had been there previously. Let me think.
I am going to write down everything-even the smallest details. Perhaps something will suggest itself, either when I am writing or when I read this over tomorrow.
I persuaded Beroep to take me across the street to Cijfer's. It was a serious violation of the law, he said; he and Aanvagen might lose their boats and even their house if the law found out. We waited until long after shadelow, when the street was almost empty. I was muffled in a thick twill boat cloak with a hood. It is dark gray, and reminds me of Olivine's giving me my augur's robe; what a strange whorl it is, in which we become someone else by putting on new clothes! The prisoner Horn disappeared as soon as Beroep draped him in this exceedingly voluminous cloak, replaced by the nameless captain of a nameless boat. In all the time I sailed with Babbie and Seawrack, I had no such cloak. Now I have no boat, but am equipped for one. No doubt it will soon appear.
In the same way, rubies and red and purple silk made me Rajan of Gaon. We are but the paper; our clothes are the ink.
Across the street we went, with Oreb flying well in advance so that his company would not betray my identity, and to make certain Cijfer would put out the lamps and open her door the moment we arrived.
She had and did. We hurried inside. "My servants away I have sent, Mysire Horn. This you say, and this I have done."
"Come bird!" Oreb was fluttering up the stairwell already. We ran after him-or at any rate Cijfer and I ran, and Beroep labored behind us, puffing and groaning. Up a flight-then another-and into the locked and bolted little bedroom whose window I had studied with Vadsig, and which has been constantly i
n my thoughts. It seemed as dark, almost, as Blood's villa; I nearly stumbled over the chair to which Cijfer directed me.
"A candle now you wish, Mysire Horn? The shutters closed are. No one can see."
It occurred to me that no one could see me well enough to recognize me even if they had been open, and I recalled Silk's saying that Mucor thought her spirit could not leave her room unless the window was open. I resolved to open the shutters of Jahlee's room, and did afterward, although nothing came of it.
Beroep arrived at the same time Cijfer brought the candle. He would have bent over Jahlee if I had permitted it. I ordered him away with a gesture that I hope brooked no argument, and he dropped gasping into the chair. It was only then, after Beroep had sat down, that I understood how it was that Cijfer served as Jahlee's jailer for so long without realizing that she was an inhuma: the sheet had been drawn up nearly to the top of her wig. "Good thing?" Oreb inquired when I lifted it.
I replaced the sheet, telling him to be quiet. "You've covered her face," I remarked to Cijfer. "May I ask why?"
"So silent she is, mysire. So cold. Like dead your poor daughter is. Seeing her so I do not like."
Not dead," Beroep gasped, "she is?"
"No. She's in a coma-from which I intend to rouse her." I felt confident of my ability to do it, and made the declaration as certain as I could. What if Jahlee, who was been buried alive in Gaon, were buried alive a second time here in Dorp? Who would rescue her then?
"My house the ghosts will leave, mysire, if up she wakes?"
I told Cijfer I was sure of it, and ordered them out; she left obediently and he reluctantly. And what more is there to tell?
Nothing, really.
I sat with her all night, thinking of Green-its ruined city, its swamps and jungles, the rice fields of the villagers, the abandoned tower in the cliff, and the derelict lander in which I died rose before my mind not once or twice but twenty or thirty times; and as far as I am capable of it, I explored their every corner, leaf, and crevice. Two floors below me, where Beroep was talking to Cijfer and drinking the white brandy they relish here, plates fell from a shelf and Cijfer shrieked in dismay. That was a little after midnight, and was far more activity than I myself saw. I opened the shutters and closed them after half an hour during which the room became unbearably cold. I moved the candle from place to place. I poked the fire and fed it fresh wood. I pulled down the sheet and kissed Jahlee's cheek, and took her hand (very clearly the hand of an inhuma) from under the bedclothes and clasped it between my own. It was as cold as ice-no dead woman's could have been colder. In time I warmed it, but Jahlee never stirred.
I prayed again and again, imploring the help of the Outsider and every other god, told my beads, and recalled ten thousand things, from my mother's kindnesses when I was a boy to the way Pig looked and spoke when he rejoined Hound and me at the fire in Blood's villa. I listened to Oreb, and talked to him-mostly to caution him to say nothing about what we were doing. And at last, when I could no longer bear his chatter, I opened the shutters again and sent him out to look for Babbie, something I very much regret now, because he has not returned.
Dawn came and with it Beroep, rather drunk, to tell me that he could risk my absence from his house no longer. So here I sit, having accomplished nothing. But what more could I have done? I wish now that I had thought to cut my arm and smeared Jahlee's lips.
* * *
Here is news, perhaps even good news. I hope so. There was an awful brawl downstairs this morning. I listened at my keyhole and soon identified Cook's voice; it was not difficult to guess who she was bawling at, so I pounded on my door and shouted for Vadsig. She was breathless when she arrived and every bit as red of face as Aanvagen, with a livid bruise on her cheek. "I only require that you talk to me awhile," I told her, "and give Cook's temper time to cool. I felt sure you'd appreciate being rescued from that situation, whatever it was."
"Going out I am, mysire. Asking her I am not." This was said in the tone of one who defies the armed might of cities. "Saying all morning she is. Lying, she is. No more than one hour it is, mysire. Less!"
"I believe you."
"Paying me she is not, mysire. A servant like me she is!"
"No doubt she became accustomed to bullying you when you were younger, Vadsig. She must learn from your speech and your deportment that you are growing up."
She nodded vigorously. "All her life a servant she is. So with me it will not be. This she sees. Our own house we will have. Children I will have, and servants like her to wait on us, it may be."
"Aim high, Vadsig. There is nothing to be gained by not doing so."
"Thank you, mysire. Very kind you are." Smoothing her apron, she turned to go. "Your son well is, mysire. Happy he is not, but well he is and love to you by me he sends."
She had gone out and turned the key before my mouth closed. Hide? And Vadsig? What a wonderful whorl we live in!
I have been walking up and down this little room, three steps and turn, worrying about Oreb. If you ever read this, dear Nettle, you will say that I ought to have been worrying about our son; but what is there to worry about? He and Vadsig will or will not marry. I cannot decide that for them, and neither could you; they must decide it for themselves. If they do not, each will regret it sometimes, and nothing you and I could say or do can change that. If they do, each will regret that sometimes, too; and we cannot change that either. So what is there to think about? I wish them both well. So would you, I believe, if you were here with me.
As for Oreb, I am concerned about him but what can I do? When we reached this whorl, he left me for nearly a year. At, this moment he has been gone less than a day. I have prayed that he is safe, and that is all I can do. I hope the Outsider, whose sacrifice Silk once intended Oreb to be, smiles on him.
The reason for my failure with poor Jahlee last night is obvious, surely. Her spirit is absent. I had supposed that it might be hovering about her body, and that I might somehow assist it to re-enter. It is not there, and in all probability is still on Green. I returned from Green, leaving her there and supposing that she could return as I did whenever she chose. Either she has not chosen to return, or she is unable to do so. If it is the first, well and good. I have no claim on her; she may remain as she is if she chooses.
But if she is unable to return (and I confess I believe that most likely) I must bring her back; and I cannot go without the company of another such as Jahlee is and my poor friend Fava was.
Available to me in this house are Vadsig, Aanvagen, Beroep, and perhaps Cijfer. I have tried to persuade myself that one of them might do. I cannot. Vadsig is lean enough, but the idea of an inhuma living by choice as Vadsig does-sleeping in a garret, sweeping and mopping floors, and washing dishes-is perfectly ridiculous. She has worked here, she says, for two years. She would have been detected a hundred times over. If somehow she had not been, she would have been detected at once by Oreb, who has seen her many times.
Beroep and Aanvagen can be dismissed at once; both are far too portly. As for Cijfer, I do not believe it. Oreb saw her and said nothing. She would not have covered Jahlee's face, or fetched a bio to help her. All four can be dismissed.
Leaving no one. What am I to do?
Sleep.
No dreams. Not of Fava and Mora, nor of anyone else; but I ought to have known better-Mora herself must be awake.
Dusk outside my window. Another short winter day has ended. Soon the house will be asleep, and I will go out and search the streets for someone like Fava and Jahlee who may (may, I say) be willing to go to Green with me and bring my poor daughter home. What else can I do? I give thanks to the Outsider, particularly, that Beroep failed to notice I was keeping his gray boat cloak.
* * *
So much has happened that I despair of recording all of it. I required Beroep's cloak-I was right about that-but not to search the streets of Dorp for a helpful inhumu. I had no more than written cloak and put away my pen case and my dwindling supply of
paper than I heard the rattle of sling swivels and the clatter of boots on the stair. In came two men with slug guns, and off to Judge Hamer we went-not to a courtroom, but to his house, where he held court in his sellaria.
"No formal session it is, Mysire Horn." He is fat and red of face, and seemed to me to be forcing his voice deeper than nature intended. "A preliminary hearing it is. This is capital cases we do."
I protested that I had killed no one.
"Nat you made your prisoner. Him you restrained, mysire. By our law a capital offense it is." He smiled, cocked his head, and pointed his forefinger down at his neck.
"Is Nat a particularly privileged individual here in Dorp, Judge Hamer?"
He looked severe. "Mysire Rechtor to me you must say, mysire, each time you speak."
"Excuse it, please, Mysire Rechtor. I am a stranger, and ignorant of your usages. Is Nat a privileged citizen, Mysire Rechtor? Or does this law you describe apply to everyone?"
"The protection of all it is, mysire."
"What about strangers such as my daughter, my son, and myself, Mysire Rechtor? Are we protected, too? Or does your law protect only your own citizens?"
"All it protects. This I say, mysire, and this so is."
"Then I protest on behalf of my daughter, Mysire Rechtor. She is being held by your order, and she had nothing to with restraining Nat-whom we soon released, by the way."
"By the law held she is, mysire. The law, the law cannot break." He addressed the troopers. "Mysire Horn's daughter, Meren Jahlee. Why not to my court fetching her you are?"
One came to attention and saluted. "Sleeping she is, Mysire Rechtor."
"Her you wake."
There was a whispered consultation; I took advantage of the time it gave me to look around. The five with slug guns I took to be legermen, although their uniforms were sketchy at best. Except for them, and Judge Hamer, there was no one in the sellaria save Beroep, Aanvagen, and me.
The sellaria itself spoke of wealth and luxury, although no wealthy man in the Viron I knew as a boy would have been impressed by it. Its floors of waxed wood was smooth, and the rough wool carpet before the judge's desk not quite contemptible. Somber pictures hung on the crudely paneled walls; heavy chairs and glass-fronted cabinets containing rusted knives and swords, and split and polished stones, completed the furnishings.