Authors: Jay Lake
Mainspring (28 page)
Who among the ship's company yet lived? Did they realize that Gordon's expeditionary force had met ruin in the landslide, even while the poor bastards were already falling at the hands of the crystal automata? Hethor wondered if he had been memorialized with some impassioned speech, the way the other dead and missing were.
Or perhaps Smallwood had exercised the only sensible judgment and turned his course from the impossible, overwhelming vastness of the Wall and sailed for England,
away from tumbling death and monsters out of legend. Somehow, Hethor doubted that pleasant outcome.
away from tumbling death and monsters out of legend. Somehow, Hethor doubted that pleasant outcome.
He sent a moment's good thought to al-Wazir and the others who had favored him, then returned from his contemplation to watch the correct people finishing their bivouac on the water road.
Young males now swarmed over the lashed-together craft, butting spears down to make poles, stringing yet more vines, arranging the shelter of woven reeds and even bolts of colored clothâthe first such that Hethor had seen among the correct people. Soon the mass of boats had more the air of a village market in the summertime. It was almost festive, with the floating equivalent of stalls and booths, the people swarming back and forth to trade gossip, or hugs, or share songs they had perhaps invented that day.
Hethor found that he was happy again. The sense of belonging amid the rising mists of the river at dusk, the songs of the correct people singing the night into its rightful place as the foetid scent of the river gave way to a sudden and unexpected freshet. Hethor roused himself to pound some waxy white root in a little bowl. Fruit juice of various colors was added, after which he passed something red and spiky to a young male with a flint knife who diced it and shared the results out, one fresh-cut sliver at a time.
It was a different kind of feast, quieter than others, prepared and eaten cold, in the spirit of the place and the moment. Absent flame on the wooden boats, the correct people sang up the moon, greeted the glimmering trails of the orbital tracks of both Earth and her satellite, and laughed their way to sleep.
Hethor soon followed. He found himself trapped in dreams of William of Ghent wielding a silver feather large as a broadsword, cutting slices from Hethor's flesh just as the young male had cut the red fruit, so that the gobbets might be served out to the viceroy's court in Boston. The clattering music of midnight woke him, audible as always
to his inner ear, but also to his outer hearing. Though they were not so close to the Wall, it was perfectly visible from the river, looming over the roof of the jungle on the north bank.
to his inner ear, but also to his outer hearing. Though they were not so close to the Wall, it was perfectly visible from the river, looming over the roof of the jungle on the north bank.
The sounds were four seconds late.
Midnight's mechanical call, so familiar, brought Hethor past
Bassett
all the way back to New Haven. He found himself assaulted by a bout of homesickness. Not that Master Bodean's attic was anything to cry for, but he was so utterly lost to anything familiar, anything he had known in his younger life. Floating down a brown river on a bed of canoes surrounded by tiny, hairy people was beyond any sense he'd ever had of himself.
Bassett
all the way back to New Haven. He found himself assaulted by a bout of homesickness. Not that Master Bodean's attic was anything to cry for, but he was so utterly lost to anything familiar, anything he had known in his younger life. Floating down a brown river on a bed of canoes surrounded by tiny, hairy people was beyond any sense he'd ever had of himself.
Arellya's fingers found his in the dark. She twined their hands together, humming a soothing little song that returned Hethor to his rest.
AT DAWN
some of the young males fought off a crocodile longer than Hethor's great canoe, managing even to kill it. There was a terrific hooting and yelling, followed by a decision to make land and slaughter the catch.
some of the young males fought off a crocodile longer than Hethor's great canoe, managing even to kill it. There was a terrific hooting and yelling, followed by a decision to make land and slaughter the catch.
“Such a wealth of meat and skin is not to be wasted,” Arellya explained to Hethor.
After his dreams and wakefulness of the night before, Hethor was less forgiving than his normal wont. “We were all in a hurry to follow the word of God, now we stop to kill lizards?”
She just smiled, an expression he'd learned to interpret as sweet. “Each travels his own road. You can go on alone if you wish. But not every step of yours has been hurried before now. Do not begrudge us this.”
So they spent a day on the riverbank. The correct people exchanged thrown rocks and mud with monkeys. They snuck up on great overhanging trees of a type Hethor had not seen before, like green castles with twiggy battlements, in order to startle scarlet-plumed birds from the endlessly ramified branches. Between mischiefs they
foraged for fruits. An enormous snake was caught, thick around as Hethor's thigh and longer than he could guess at, which was gutted and sliced for roasting with the croc, as bacon might be placed with a turkey in the oven.
foraged for fruits. An enormous snake was caught, thick around as Hethor's thigh and longer than he could guess at, which was gutted and sliced for roasting with the croc, as bacon might be placed with a turkey in the oven.
Hethor intended to study his golden tablet again that day. He thought to commit each sigil to memory in the hopes of once more reaching that evanescent place within his mind where the wheels and gears of the universe had meshed for him. Instead he found himself constantly drawn off into small adventures and choresâmost of the latter more than a little bloody, given the nature of the flotilla's distractions.
After fighting with his sense of duty for several hours, Hethor finally gave in and spent the balance of the day playing with the young males. He lent his strength, and even once or twice his practical experience, to the game that they made of every duty and needful thing.
It was a different kind of happiness, he realized, to be at play in the jungles of the world.
That night they lit another bonfire on a bar in the middle of the river. The correct people chanted and sang and roasted the great chunks of meat coiled in the flames, so that even the smoke was delicious. The world's problems seemed far away. Late in the evening, as he listened to the travelers trade stories about the Snake That Ate the World, and the Great Tapir, and other heroes, the trees around them began to sway with a vigor far in excess of the night's wind. The correct people fell silent as Hethor cocked his ear to the music of Creation and heard discord, a stuttering like a gear with a burr in need of filing, hanging up inside some precision mechanism. Though the ground they sat on felt little different, the river slopped its banks as the day birds awoke screaming to take whirring flight in the dark.
After a time the earthquake passed, the river quieted, and the birds returned grumbling and calling to their roosts. The correct people all looked to Hethor, the Messenger, for some comfort.
“I do not know,” he said slowly, “stories like yours of the Snake or the Great Tapir or your other heroes and challengers. But I can tell you of the Student, the Master, and the Angel.”
Hethor wiped his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to find a way to make his experience sensible to them.
“Once,” Hethor continued, “there lived a Student. He was poor and without aunties or fellow males or a headman to advise him in his life. With his last few gourds and flints, he bargained for a place in the clan of a great ⦠a great headman of a kind. Only this headman was a master of things of metal, not of a clan of people.
“The Student called this man Master. He lived among the Master's groves and game trails, taking meat that the Master gave him, and warming himself by the Master's fire. The Student gave to the Master all of his time and effort in service, doing as the Master bid, laboring as the Master saw fit.
“In return, the Master taught the Student the lore of things of metal, their making and their keeping. Things of metal were important in the place where the Student dwelt. They were prized by all the people. The things the Master made and kept, and traded away, were meant to count the motion of the heavens so that a man might always know the day and moment in which he dwelt. These were among the things of metal most prized, so the Student had promise of great success if he were ever to become a Master of his own.
“One day, an Angel came to the Student while he slept in a dirty corner of the Master's grove. The Angel said, âBe the Messenger, and pursue the word of God to the place where the world has a hurt. There you must stanch that hurt.' When the Student told the Master of the Angel's words, the Master's sons were jealous, and called him liar and thief, and cast him out. The Student became the Messenger, and wanders God's world seeking to stanch its hurt, which causes the world to twitch in pain.”
There was silence for a while, and the crackling of the fire. One of the young males finally spoke up.
“A question, Messenger. Why would anyone need to ask the day and moment from a thing of metal, when the sky freely tells this to anyone with eyes to lift upward?”
“I don't know,” said Hethor with a smile. “Once, I could answer that question, but the correct people have taught me that I was wrong.”
This answer pleased them, and a murmur ran among the hairy men.
Another spoke. “Why did the Student place himself beneath the Master? No person needs to be other than what he is.”
“Another question I can no longer answer,” Hethor said, “except to say that you are wiser than my old Master and all my teachers together.”
They laughed then, and began to trickle away to sleep, each spitting in the fire to douse their little part of it. Hethor sat until the flames reduced themselves to embers, listening to the whirr of bats and thinking about his own story.
THE NEXT
day the flotilla resumed its trip down the river. The bloody-damp snakeskin coiled over two rafts, while the crocodile had been sectioned out among those who had slain it. Dragonflies appeared on the water, with wings longer than the span of Hethor's open hands. The trees grew denser and darker.
day the flotilla resumed its trip down the river. The bloody-damp snakeskin coiled over two rafts, while the crocodile had been sectioned out among those who had slain it. Dragonflies appeared on the water, with wings longer than the span of Hethor's open hands. The trees grew denser and darker.
The character of both the jungle and the river was changing.
Hethor sat among fresh-cut leaves with the golden tablet balanced on his knees, but it was the deepening shadows of the daytime jungle that caught his eye.
“What does it mean?” he finally asked Arellya, waving one hand toward the changing foliage.
“Kalker warned me that our water road eventually
comes to the Great Salt River. In that water a correct person would swim, or even merely drink, in fear of their life. Perhaps these are the first encroachments of the Salt.”
comes to the Great Salt River. In that water a correct person would swim, or even merely drink, in fear of their life. Perhaps these are the first encroachments of the Salt.”
“That is the sea,” said Hethor, “and I have sailed over it in a boat of the air. Like a wooden bird with woven wings. It may be safely swum in, at least when the sun is bright and the air is calm, but Kalker is right about never drinking it.”
Saltwater marshes, then,
he thought, and turned his attentions back to the tablet.
he thought, and turned his attentions back to the tablet.
It was different somehow, this day. The word he suspected of being the Tetragrammaton was more familiar, possessing something of an aura of holiness about it. Hethor had no sounds for it, so he simply said, in English, “God.”
Three times, then: God, God, God.
He traced his fingers over the words. His fingertips felt the tiny clattering hum of the gears within the gears within the gearsâthat same sense he'd had the night of the festival-rite, when the tongue of the correct people had come to him.
This was the word of God. God's words spoke of Him.
What did God have to say? This message must concern the worldâthat was, after all, Gabriel's errand for him.
“World” leapt out at him, an echo of bird-screaming jungles and the cold air high atop the Wall mixed together in the touch of Hethor's fingertips on the metal. God ⦠world, then God, then God ⦠world again.
He was almost willing to believe Kalker now, that there was such a thing as spirit-magic. Hethor closed his eyes, tablet still in hand, and prayed. He sought not the arrogant, intellectual God of Pryce Bodean, but rather the God whose voice Hethor had heard echo through the world during the correct people's festival-rite.
You are there,
he prayed,
in the ticking of every clock, in every spring that coils to store energy for the further
powering of Creation. Every leaf is a spring storing the sunlight; every fruit stores the tree. The soul of man stores You, doesn't it? You areâ
he prayed,
in the ticking of every clock, in every spring that coils to store energy for the further
powering of Creation. Every leaf is a spring storing the sunlight; every fruit stores the tree. The soul of man stores You, doesn't it? You areâ
Then the canoe tilted as the paddlers shrieked and Arellya shouted his name. Tumbling backward, Hethor saw water
above
his head, and jaws longer than his legs. Raddled teeth in lengthy rows aiming for his face. Scarlet gobbets already clung to them as the steersman bobbed in two surprised, bloody halves in the water.
above
his head, and jaws longer than his legs. Raddled teeth in lengthy rows aiming for his face. Scarlet gobbets already clung to them as the steersman bobbed in two surprised, bloody halves in the water.
Hethor slid into the jaws, his legs splashing into the river. The mouth around his chest was pale and mottled with gray, the stench of the crocodile's breath appalling almost beyond measure.
I die,
Hethor thought,
taken by a bandit on the water road.
Hethor thought,
taken by a bandit on the water road.
His hands flew of their own accord to flip the tablet upward and snag it between the teeth to his right, near to the back of the jaws. The crocodile's mouth closed with a creak until it caught on the tablet, which wedged between upper and lower teeth, stopping the bite. Definitely plated, some detached part of himself observed. Real gold was too soft to take such strain. There was still pressure on Hethor's solar plexus, and death perilously close to his neck. He remained trapped but whole.
“Messenger!” someone shouted in the speech of the correct people as the crocodile thrashed.
He was not dead yet, but escape was denied to him. The crocodile slid backward into the stinking water, pulling Hethor down.
The music,
he thought, hearing the music of Creation.
Change the gearing. Help me, God.
he thought, hearing the music of Creation.
Change the gearing. Help me, God.
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