On Blue's waters (25 page)

“All right,” I told her. “If it’s one of the Vanished People, I won’t shoot him. Or her, either. But I’d certainly like to see them.” I did not believe that it was, and in that I was quite correct.

For a few minutes that seemed like an hour I scoured the bushes with Babbie trotting at my heels; then a greenbuck broke cover and darted away, leaping and zigzagging as they do. Babbie was after it at once, squealing with excitement.

I threw my slug gun to my shoulder and was able to get off one quick shot. The greenbuck broke stride and stumbled to its knees, but in less than a breath it had bounded up again, cutting right and running hard. It vanished into brush, and I sprinted after it, all my fatigue forgotten, guided by Babbie’s agitated
hunck-hunck-bunck!

Very suddenly I was falling into darkness.

Here and thus baldly I had intended to end both tonight’s labor and this whole section of my narrative. I wiped this new quill of Oreb’s and put it away, shut up the scuffed little pen case I found where my father must have left it in the ashes of our old shop, and locked the drawer that holds this record, a thick sheaf of paper already.

But it cannot be. It cannot be a mere incident like Wijzer’s drawing his map and the rest. Either that fall must be the end of the entire work (which might be wisest) or else it cannot close at all.

So let me say this to whoever may read. With that fall, the best part of my life was over. The pit was its grave.

It must be very late, but I cannot sleep. Somewhere very far away, Seawrack is singing to her waves.

KRAIT

W
hen I regained consciousness it must have been almost shadelow. I lay on my back for a long while then, occasionally opening my eyes and shutting them again, seeing without thinking at all about anything I saw. The sky darkened, and the stars came out. I remember seeing Green directly above my up-turned face, and later seeing it no longer, but only the innocent stars that had fled before it and returned when it had gone.

It was at about that time that I felt the cold. I knew I was cold and wished that I were not. I may have moved, rubbing myself with my hands or hugging myself and shivering; I cannot be sure. Glittering eyes and sharp faces came and went, but I appealed for no help and received none.

Sunlight warmed me. I kept my eyes closed, knowing that it would be painful to look at the sun. It vanished, and I opened them to see what had become of it, and saw Babbie’s familiar, hairy mask peering at me over the edge of the pit. I closed them again, and the next time I opened them he had gone.

I think it was not long afterward that I came to myself. I sat up, cold, full of pain, and terribly thirsty. It was as if my spirit had gone and left my body unoccupied as it did on Green; but in this case it had returned, and my memories (such as they were) were those of the body and not those of the spirit. It was day again, perhaps midafternoon. I was sitting among earth and fallen leaves in a pit about twelve cubits deep.

(My own height, I should say, was three cubits and two hands at that time-a good deal less than it is now. Looking up at the walls of the pit while there was still light enough for me to do it, I estimated their height as three to four times my own.)

They had originally been of smooth stone of a kind that was not shiprock, or granite, or any other with which I was familiar. In places it had fallen away, and bare earth thick with gravel could be seen through the openings. These gave me hope of climbing out, but when I tried to stand up I found myself so weak and dizzy that I nearly fell, and quickly sat down again.

It is conceivable that the pit had been intended as a trap from its beginning, but I do not believe that it was. It seems to me instead that it was all that remained of some work of the Vanished People, possibly the cellar of a tower or some such thing. The tower (if there had ever been one) had collapsed centuries earlier, scatter- ing its wreckage across the valley and leaving this pit to collect the leaves of autumn and unfortunates like me. Eventually treacherous vines had veiled its opening, weaving a sort of mat which I had torn to shreds when I fell. A few long strands hung over the edge still, and it seemed to me that I might be able to climb out with their help, if only I could reach them; but I was, as I have said, too weak even to stand.

Strangely, I did not sleep that night, although I had slept so long-three days at least-after my fall. I did not, but sat up shivering and tried to rake together a bed of leaves for myself that would keep me warm, or at least less cold, finding among them my slug gun and the clean bones and skulls of several small animals, instruments of divination in which I read my own fate. I prayed; and at intervals of an hour or so, I fired my slug gun into the air, hoping that Seawrack would hear the shots, wherever she was, and realize that I was still alive. When only two cartridges remained, I resolved to reserve them until there was some hope that someone was nearby.

(Until I heard her voice, I suppose; but in sober fact I hear her now although she is so far away.)

Then I would-this is what I promised myself-fire one shot more; and if that also failed, a last cartridge would remain.

Morning came, and with it warmth and a new face that looked at me over the edge of the pit. At the time I thought it the face of a boy or a small man. “There you are,” the owner said. He stood, and I must have seen that he was naked. Possibly I realized that he was not human as well, but if I did it made little impression on my mind.

A moment more, and to my numb astonishment he leaped from the edge, down into the pit with me, saying, “I want to get you out.”

No doubt it was said ironically, but I heard nothing of that. My rescuer had arrived.

“Shall I do it?”

Logically I should have said that he was trapped now just as I was; naturally I said nothing of the kind. “Please,” I said, and I believe I must have nodded. “Please help me if you can.”

“I can if you’ll let me. Will you?”

No doubt I nodded again.

He strode over to my slug gun, a diminutive, sexless figure. Picked it up, cycled the action, and threw it to his shoulder, aiming at the sun, or perhaps only at the edge of the pit. “I can’t use one of these, Horn,” he said, “but you can.”

“Be careful.” My voice had become a weak croak, and seemed the voice of a stranger. “The safety’s off, and you chambered a fresh round.”

“I know.” He grinned at me, and I saw the folding fangs that reached nearly to his chin. “You could kill me with this. All you’ve got to do is point it and pull the trigger. Isn’t that right?”

“I won’t.”

“Your last chance would be gone.” He grinned again, testing one slender fang against the ball of his thumb, as though making certain that it was sharp enough.

“I know,” I said.

He laughed, a boy’s cheerful, delighted chortle. “Do you know who I am, too?”

“I know what you are. Is that what you mean?”

“But not who?”

By that time I was sure he had come to kill me. I stared down at the leaves.

“I am your best friend, the only friend you have in all the whorl, Horn. Have you any others?” He sat down facing me, with my slug gun across his lap.

There was nothing to say, so I said nothing.

“You hate me and you hate our people. You made that clear when I visited your boat. Why do you hate us so?”

I thought of Sinew, livid and scarcely breathing in the little bed we had made for him; but I said, “I wouldn’t hate you at all if you got me out of this. I would be very grateful to you.”

“Why did you hate me so when you woke up and found me on your boat?”

It was a long time before I spoke, a minute at least; but he seemed prepared to wait all day, and at length I muttered, “You know.”

“I don’t.” He shook his head. “I know why you Blue people dislike us, and it’s regrettable though understandable. I don’t know why you, the particular individual called Horn, hate me as you do.”

I was silent.

“Me. Not my race in general but me; you do, and I can feel it. Why does Horn hate me? I won’t name myself yet. I haven’t quite decided on a name, and there’s plenty of time. But why hate me?”

“I don’t hate you,” I insisted. “I was afraid of you on the sloop because I knew you had come for blood.”

He waited expectantly.

“I know enough about you inhumi to frighten me ten times over. I know how strong you are, and that you can swim better than we can, and fly. I know how clever you are, too.”

“Do you really know how clever we are? Tell me. I’d love to hear it.”

“You speak my language as well as I do, and you could make me believe you were one of us if you wanted to. One of you was our Prolocutor in the Long Sun Whorl.” I hesitated. “Do I have to explain what a Prolocutor is?”

He shook his head. “Go on.”

“He pretended to be a doddering old man, but he saw through everybody and outwitted our Ayuntamiento over and over again. He outwitted the rest of us, too. We never doubted that he was human.”

“I see. He was a cunning foe, who nearly destroyed you.” At certain angles there was a light in the inhumu’s eyes that seemed almost a yellow flame.

“No, he wasn’t my enemy, he was my friend. Or at any rate he was Silk’s friend, and I was Silk’s friend, too.” Exhausted as I was, and sick with pain, I did not consider how unlikely it was that the inhumu had ever heard of Silk.

“Are you saying you hated this man because he befriended your friend?”

“I’ve made it sound too simple.”

“Most things are simple.”

“Patera Quetzal wasn’t a man at all, but we didn’t know it. He was one of you, and he drank blood!”

“I wish that I could talk to him.” The inhumu seemed to speak mostly to himself.

“He’s dead.”

“Oh. Really. You turned on your friend and killed him, when you found out he was one of us?”

I wanted to say that I wished I had, which would have been the plain truth; but I wanted much more-wanted desperately, in fact-to escape the pit. “We didn’t. We didn’t even know until he was dead. He was shot by the Trivigauntis we were fighting and died of his wound.” That was the plain truth as well.

“So you hate him now because he drank your blood and deceived you, and that hatred has been carried over to me? Is that all there is?”

“You drank Babbie’s blood.”

“Your hus? Yes, I did. What else?”

I actually began to tell him, saying, “I have a wife and children-”

“I know. On the isle they call the Lizard, or Lizard Island.”

I suppose I must have gaped.

“You’ve been answering questions for me, so I’ll answer that one for you. When I was on your boat, the siren who was with you said you’d spoken to people on another one. Do you remember that?”

“A siren?” I was bewildered, and in no condition to think. “Do you mean Seawrack?”

“If we accept that name as hers.”

“She’s very good-looking.” I tried to swallow, although my mouth was drier than the palms of my hands. “But she’s not a-a seductress. She’s still very young.”

He smiled. Until then I had forgotten that they could. “Let’s forget I used that word. The young lady with you said you had spoke to another boat.”

“You can’t have learned about us just from that.”

“Certainly I could have. I did. I found the boat, which wasn’t very far from yours, and talked to the men on it. They thought I was one of you, naturally, and I gave them valuable information, which I made up. In return, they told me your name and your wife’s and where you were going, which was the chief thing I wanted to know. There aren’t many towns where a man might be named Horn. I went to New Viron, which was the closest. We can fly, you know, a whole lot faster than your little boat can sail. I made more inquiries there, and I had no trouble at all.”

If my face was not grim at that moment, it lied; I was very close to trying to snatch my slug gun from him and kill him. “Did you harm my family?”

“No. I flew over your island and had a look at your house and your paper mill. I’m curious at times, like anybody else. I saw a woman there, standing on the beach and looking out to sea, an older and somewhat plainer woman than the new wife on your boat. I didn’t harm her, and I don’t think she saw me. Is that sufficient?”

I nodded.

“Fine. Take this back, will you?” He passed me my slug gun. “I can’t use it and you can, so you’d better have it.”

Numbly, I accepted it and pushed up the safety.

“You aren’t going to shoot me?” He raised his hands in a gesture of mock surrender.

“No. No, I’m not.”

“You’re remembering something. I sense it. Want to tell me what it is?”

“Nothing to the point.” My head ached, and the hope that had given me new life for a minute or two had guttered out. Should I put the muzzle into my mouth? That might be the best way.

“Tell me, please.”

Perhaps it was the shock of hearing one of these monsters say please; whatever the reason, I did. “I was recalling what a woman named Chenille once told Nettle about a man, a starving convict, named Gelada. He was in the tunnels. There are horrible tunnels running underground all through the Long Sun Whorl, where I used to live.”

“Gelada was in them,” the inhumu prompted me.

“He wanted to escape. Anybody would. He had a bow, but Auk, the man who was with Chenille, said he wouldn’t shoot them, because they were Gelada’s only chance. Without them, he would never get out.”

“I said that. I said all that earlier, and you ought to have listened. If I were to get you out, it would be terribly dangerous for me, wouldn’t it? Unless I disposed of that slug gun and your knife first.” His face was that of a reptile, although his forehead was higher; his voice was a young man’s-was my son’s.

“No,” I told him. I was almost too despondent to argue. “If you freed me, I would never hurt you. Never, not for any reason.”

He stood up. “I’m going, but I’ll leave you this to think about. We could kill you, all of you. We’re stronger, as you said, and we can fly. Our race is older than yours, and has learned things that you can’t even dream of. Since you hate us, and kill us when you can, why don’t we do it?”