Return to the Whorl tbotss-3

by Gene Wolfe

  "Aye, bucky. Been rainin' h'out there? H'it has!"

  He turned to study Hound. "So are you."

  Hound did not reply.

  "It's raining outside, Pig, exactly as you said. But not in here. There's a tile roof, and tile lasts if it isn't broken."

  "H'in through ther winders, bucky."

  "Bird too," Oreb remarked.

  His owner stroked him. "Do you mean that you fly into the house through its broken windows as the rain does, Oreb? Or that you are as wet as Hound and Pig?"

  "Bird wet!" Oreb spread his wings, warming them at the dying fire.

  "Indeed you are, and for very the same reason-that is to say, because you were out there with me."

  "I wasn't." Hound spoke to the fire. "I've got to tell you that, and there it is. I heard the godling when it spoke to you, and I hid in here, in one of the little rooms off this one, until Pig came."

  "I don't blame you."

  "I tried to get him to hide too, but he wouldn't. He went out into the rain to help you."

  "Good man!" Oreb exclaimed.

  "Then you went out to bring him back?"

  Hound nodded, still looking at the fire.

  "Hung h'on me h'arm," Pig explained.

  "I made him listen. And you and the godling were talking, were conversing, really, like a man and his servant. We-I couldn't make out what you were saying. Could you, Pig?"

  "Nae ter speak a'."

  "We could only catch a word here and there, but we knew from your voices that it wasn't going to hurt you. So Pig put away his sword again and came back here."

  "Good Silk!"

  "He most certainly is, Oreb, which is why we must find him. But you and Hound and Pig are good, too, each in your own wayfriends far better than I deserve. You came to me while I sat in the godling's hand, and that took a great deal of courage. Hound's hiding in here was merely good sense, since he couldn't have achieved anything if he had tried to save me from what was actually a nonexistent threat. When there was a life to be saved, he acted as courageously as any man could.

  "As for Pig, what he was ready to do leaves me speechless. I've sat cross-legged in the palm of that godling's hand, Pig, and the mere notion of attacking it in any way, of firing on it with a slug gun from a window of this house, for example, much less rushing at it with a sword…" He shook his head.

  Pig chuckled. "Candy fer me, bucky. Could nae see h'it."

  "But you saw Mucor? I mean the second time, when I sent her out to you?"

  "Ho, aye." Pig's tone was no longer bantering.

  Hound said, "Without offense, Horn. I hesitate to ask, but… I was terrified. I admit it."

  "So was I," he said.

  "I still am." Hound looked him in the face for the first time. "I'd like to know what the two of you were talking about. It wasn't… It isn't going to kill us or anything?"

  He shook his head. "It's trying to help us, actually."

  "Auld Pig'd like ter hear ter, bucky."

  "I'll be happy to tell you, and in fact it's my duty to; but there are other questions. Perhaps Hound has asked them already. If so, I didn't get to hear your answers."

  Hound said, "I haven't."

  "Then I will. Can you tell us what Mucor said to you, Pig? It may be important."

  There was a silence so long that Oreb croaked, "Pig talk!"

  "Nae easy ter get h'it right," Pig muttered apologetically. "H'asked h'about me een. Knew I would, dinna yer?"

  "Yes, I assumed so."

  "Said she dinna know. A wee chat then, an' she said ter stay wi' yer, an' I might get 'em. Sae when Hound said h'it had yer, 'twas hoot sword, an' h'at 'em."

  "I understand-or at least I understand more than I did. Did she tell you why she thought you might regain your sight in my company?"

  "Did she, bucky? She did nae."

  "After I left Mucor's room, Pig, I wanted to go into the suite that Silk's wife Hyacinth once occupied. It took me some while to find it, and when I did you were already there. You were angry, I believe, because I threatened to intrude."

  "Aye, bucky."

  For a moment or two he stared at the broad, fleshy face, made pitiable by the damp gray rag across its eyes. "May I ask what you were doing there, Pig?"

  "A place ter think's h'all."

  "You didn't know that the room you chose to think in had been Hyacinth's bedroom?"

  "Did he? He dinna."

  "You were outdoors, standing on the lawn, when you spoke with Mucor."

  "Aye."

  "It wasn't raining then-it can't have been, because it hadn't begun to rain yet when Hound and I went out to look for firewood sometime later. Why did you go back into the house, Pig? Was it to get out of the wind?"

  "Why, bucky? Why nae? Dinna think h'about h'it."

  "Did you come back here where Hound was waiting for us?"

  Hound touched his knee and mouthed the word no.

  "Dinna think sac," Pig murmured. "Crawlt h'in a winder."

  "And went up to the second floor, which is where Hyacinth's suite was, to think?"

  "Aye, bucky."

  He felt his face and found that it had been dried by the fire, then ran his hand through his untidy hair, which was damp still. "You're fencing with me, Pig."

  "H'is he?" It was not followed by the expected "he h'is nae!"

  "Yes, he is. You are, and I'm too tired to fence. I've never taken fencing lessons, Pig, but Silk did and I got to know his fencing teacher, an old man named Xiphias. It seemed a glamorous business then, fencing."

  "Did h'it noo?"

  "Yes. Yes, it did." He recalled the ruined sword-stick, leaning forgotten in a corner of the Calde's Palace. He (or had it been Silk?) had drawn its hidden blade to feel the place where Blood's azoth had notched it. He recalled the moment, and with it the texture of a bamboo practice sword and the swift pattering steps when there was no time to boast, time only for the mock-deadly business of winning or losing, thrust and parry, advance and retreat. "Later," he said, "when I was building my mill, I wondered why anyone bothered. Other than by arrangement, the occasions when two combatants with swords fight it out must be very rare. On Green-have I told you I went to Green, Pig?"

  "Aye."

  He lay down, hands behind his head. "I got a sword there; and after I had used it to clear a sewer clogged with corpses, I used it to kill red leapers and animals of that kind. There's an art to that, if you will allow-but it isn't fencing."

  Pig's deep, rough voice seemed to come from very far away. "Want ter tell yer, bucky. Truly do."

  "You've sworn not to?"

  "Dinna know meself. Somethin' h'inside, ca'in' me. Kept goin' an' goin', till h'it felt hamy. Believe h'in ghaists?"

  Hound said, "No."

  "Yes. Certainly."

  "Ane h'in there, bucky. Felt a' her."

  A half-strangled sob elicited, "Poor Pig," from Oreb.

  "Winded perfume. Kissed me, ter. Believe h'it?"

  "Yes. She kissed a great many men in there, Pig."

  "If yer'd come h'in…" The long, brass-tipped scabbard stirred, scraping the hearthstone.

  There was a long silence, broken by Hound. "You said you'd tell us what the godling told you."

  "So I did. It's bad news for you, I'm afraid; and bad news for me as well. I should tell you first, however, that I haven't the least intention of doing what I was instructed to do."

  "You're going to disobey it?"

  "I am indeed. What right has it to expect obedience from me?" Again he felt the pelting rain, the freezing wind that had driven it like sleet, and the faint warmth of the huge hand. He opened his eyes. "It is not a rhetorical question, Hound. Pig, I ask it of you, too. What gives that godling-or any other-a moral right to our obedience? You've been here for the past twenty years, as I have not. Answer me if you can."

  "They speak for the gods." Hound sounded more diffident than ever.

  "They say they do, perhaps; but the one who spoke to me didn't even bother to say it. I
might add that augurs often make the same assertion, on dubious grounds."

  "Holdin' yer, wasn't h'it, bucky? Could a' killed yer."

  "That's correct. I was seated on the palm of its hand, and if I had jumped, I might've been badly hurt."

  "Be dead, bucky."

  "I doubt it. The distance from his palm to the ground must have been two or three times my height-approximately the fall Silk suffered when he drove through Hyacinth's window. Do you know about that, either of you?"

  Hound said, "No."

  "I won't bore you with the details, but Silk jumped out of her window and landed on flagstones, breaking his ankle. If I'd jumped from the godling's hand, I would've landed on wet ground. That might have been almost as bad-I doubt very much, however, that it could have been worse."

  "S'pose h'it'd shut h'its han' h'on yer?"

  Oreb squawked in dismay.

  "I would've been crushed, no doubt. Still, I doubt that it could have. They move slowly. Even in the short time I talked with it, I couldn't help noticing that. Each of its fingers must weigh as much as you do. If that's correct, closing its hand entails moving the weight of four very large men."

  " "Bucky…

  He chuckled. "Oreb told me a big man was behind the house. I thought he meant you, and Hound and I had been worried about you, so I went with him. Afterward-while I was sitting in the handI was inclined to be angry with him for saying big man instead of godling, giant, or something of that kind that would've told me what I was to encounter. Then I realized that to him we're as gigantic as a godling is to us-that Oreb sees little difference between a large man like you and a larger one like the godling because there really isn't much, from his standpoint. What could a godling do to him that you couldn't?"

  "Would nae hurt yer, H'oreb," Pig rumbled.

  "No. But neither would the godling. You and Hound thought I was very brave for talking to it as I did-"

  "I still think it," Hound announced.

  "But Oreb's being just as brave every time he perches on my wrist and talks with me. A wild bird wouldn't do that, and I can't blame it in the least…" The birds suggested trees, immense trees like mountains and graceful fern-foliaged trees that swayed in every breeze and burned like incense; the trees, islands and continents, and smiling lakes, deep blue seas, and storm-tossed oceans.

  "What yer thinkin' h'about, bucky?"

  "The three whorls. Two large and low, by which I mean near the Short Sun. This one near the stars. I don't know whether Green's bigger than Blue, or Blue's bigger than Green; but both are much bigger than this whorl we're in, the Long Sun Whorl. When we came to Blue, we scarcely noticed that. I didn't notice it at all, in fact, and doubt that many of us did. Both this whorl and that one were very large places to us, and that was all that mattered; yet I would guess that Blue is ten or twenty times larger-that there's more difference in size between Blue and this whorl than between the godling and ourselves. In this whorl, Pas took care to separate us with rivers and mountain ranges. On Blue there isn't much need for that. Distance itself makes us keep our distance." He closed his eyes again, seeing league upon league of open water, and feeling the gentle rocking of his sloop.

  "Horn? You said you had bad news for us. What is it?"

  "Not for Pig-at least, I don't believe so. For you and me, Hound. You wanted to take your family to Green after your child was born. So it sounded. Have you changed your mind?"

  "No. I-no."

  "Then it's bad news, as I said. For me, too, because I must find Silk and take him home with me, and that means we must find a Lander in working order and places on it. The godling told me it has been decided-I don't know by whom-that enough people have left the Whorl now, and everyone who's still on board is to remain aboard."

  Oreb whistled sharply.

  "It came as a shock to me, as you may imagine, and I'm by no means certain it conforms to the will of Pas. When Patera Silk and the sleeper he had awakened went down to the surface of the whorl where the landers are, he saw the inscription Pas had caused to be cut into the steps. It read, `He who descends serves Pas best.' My understanding has always been that everyone-the entire population of the whorl-is to leave it."

  "Nae mair, bucky?"

  "Correct. At least, according to the godling. Everyone in the Whorl is to remain. They hope to repair it." Closing his eyes again, he added softly, "That was what Echidna and Hierax wanted. It would seem they have won after all, although the godling claimed to be speaking for Patera Silk."

  "Don't you think that it might be the divine Silk issuing these orders, Horn?"

  He sat up a second time, eyes wide. "What did you say?"

  "The minor god that augurs call Silent Silk? Or Silver Silk?" Hound cleared his throat. "I don't know much about your religious beliefs, Pig…"

  "Nae me," Pig told him. "'Fraid ter get me wind h'up? H'all pals. Right, H'oreb?"

  "Good Silk!"

  Hound said, "He really is," then added hastily, "not that they all aren't. There are no bad gods. I know that."

  "You're telling me that there's a god called Silk?"

  "Why, yes." Hound drew his jacket more tightly about him, and edged a finger's breadth nearer the dying fire. "I thought you must know about him. You're looking for Calde Silk, and I suppose Calde Silk must have been named for him, since it's a name people can use, too. Men, I mean, or boys. It's sort of a stretch, not like Hound or Horn or Pig. But Wool's a common name." Hound fell silent, clearly afraid he was offending one or both his companions.

  "Good name! Good Silk!"

  "Be quiet, Oreb. Hound, I'd like to know a great deal more about this god named Silk. I haven't been here, remember."

  "I shouldn't have brought him up." Hound was clearly sorry he had.

  "Like ter know ter," Pig rumbled. "Yer said h'it Nought ter be Silk's tellin'? Why sae?"

  "Well, because the godling spoke to Horn, that's all, and Horn's looking for Calde Silk and… and it seems like there's some connection, doesn't it? Because the names are the same."

  He asked, "Why do the augurs call him Silent Silk and Silver Silk, Hound? Do you know?"

  "I think so. But there's a disagreement about him. I should tell you that in case you talk to other people about him. Did I call him a minor god?"

  "Yes, you did."

  Oreb snapped his bill in protest.

  "Well, some people don't agree with that. They say he's not a minor god at all, that he's an aspect of Pas. I don't understand aspects."

  Pig stirred impatiently. "S'pose he was ter gae 'round callin' himself somethin', sae folk wadna know."

  Hound nodded. "I see."

  "I don't like to disagree, Pig," he said, "and hesitate to in a matter of no importance. But what you're describing is a mere lie, not an aspect. The gods are known by foreign names in many foreign cities, Hound. Are you aware of it?"

  "I haven't traveled, I mean like you have, or Pig. But I've heard something about it."

  "It is so. Those, too, are their names; and they have as much right to them as we have to ours. There is also the matter of personality, both the kinds of persons we are at base and the way we seem to others. You have your personality; you are always Hound, whether you are kind or cruel, whether you act well or badly. Pig is always Pig, Oreb-"

  "Good bird!"

  "Is always Oreb, a good bird just as he says; and I'm always myself. But the immortal gods, whose powers are so much greater than ours, can incorporate many different personalities, and do. This not some special insight of mine, by the way. Merely what I was taught in the schola."

  "I see," Hound said again. "You're going to say that when a god uses a new name and a new personality, that's an aspect. Isn't that right, Horn?"

  He nodded. "And a new appearance. The god is still Pas, Molpe, or whoever; but this is a view of Pas or Molpe that we haven't been privileged to see before-a new aspect of Pas or Molpe. Now, why has the god called Silk been awarded the epithet Silent?"

  "Because he told th
e Prolocutor that he looked out of the Sacred Windows without showing himself there, like Tartaros. But Tartaros generally turns them black and speaks. Silk said he didn't speak or make the window change at all, pretty often. He just looked on."

  "Thank you." He yawned and stretched. "Thank you very much, Hound. Believe me, I appreciate your information more than I can say. Is everyone ready to sleep? I confess I am-more than ready."

  "No sleep. Night good!"

  "It may or may not be night, Oreb. We have no way of knowing, and certainly no one should feel compelled to sleep who doesn't want to."

  Hound said hastily, "You don't have to lie on the bare floor, Horn. I've got a blanket you can lie on. Folded in threes, it'll be a lot more comfortable."

  "Thank you," he said. "That's very kind of you; but what we really need is firewood, I'm afraid. It's certainly getting cooler. I'll go outside and look for some, if both of you will promise to remain in here."

  Pig prepared to rise. "Be ter wet ter burn, bucky."

  "He's right," Hound told him. "You could catch pneumonia if you went out there again, and it would be for nothing."

  "Dry, we need, bucky." Laboriously, Pig stood up. "Here's ther lad ter fetch h'it, ter. Dirma yer gae wi'."

  "Pig-"

  The long sword was only half drawn from its brass-tipped scabbard, but the swift hiss of the steel was like the hiss of a coiler big enough to crush and devour five men at once. Oreb squawked with dismay.

  "I wasn't going to try to stop you, Pig-nor was I going to insist on going with you."

  "Guid h'on yer, bucky." Pig grinned as the sword shot back into its scabbard. "Get yer rest while auld Pig tears h'up boards ter warm yer."

  They sat in silence, watching Pig's broad back vanish into the surrounding gloom; then Hound said, "I'll get that blanket," and proceeded to do so.

  "That is your bedding, Hound, and I decline to deprive you of it. I slept in a field night before last."

  "I've got another one for myself." Hound smiled. "You ought to know me better than that by now. You'd give another man your only blanket and think nothing of it, I know. But I wouldn't. Neither would Pig."

  "Good Pig?" Oreb was puzzled.

  "Yes, Oreb. Pig is a good man-an extraordinarily good man, I'm sure. One who might give someone else his only blanket, unless I miss my guess."