Watson, Ian - Black Current 01 (17 page)

 
          
The
waters slid forth like tongues out of a thick-lipped mouth. Stanchions of rocky
support, like teeth, stood hundreds of spans apart. Surely the action of the
water would wear these supports away eventually—and then the whole Precipice
would fall on top of us!
Perhaps today.

 
          
Away
to the west the black current emerged through a narrower supporting arch. Yet
terms such as arches or stanchions convey the wrong impression. This suggests
that the river was flowing from under a kind of bridge. In fact the cliffs
extended right down to the surface of the water, and a little below, blocking
any possible access or insight into what lay within this long hole in the
Precipices. The supports were only visible because of bulges and ripples and
what we could see through the dull glass of the water itself. So the river
appeared to be oozing out of something solid—like the trail of slime behind a
snail (only in reverse). Enormous snail, mighty trail!

 
          
I
was glad that Peli was on board with me: so bluffly assertive— like the elder
sister that I had never had. I was even
more glad
when
we tacked about, almost within touching distance of the Precipice, to drift
back towards the town.

 
          
The
next day a kind of sacred conclave of the river guild was held on board the
schooner
Santamaria,
which was also
riding at anchor. We lucky seven were invited.

 
          
Several
guildmistresses were present, besides the quaymistress and Marcialla. (She and
I rowed over together from the
Spry
Goose,
with myself at the oars.) There followed solemn readings from the
private chapbook of the guild; then practical tips, and cautions. I left
feeling more chastened than when I had arrived, at the prospect of our holy and
dangerous duty. I can't say that I also felt inspired, exactly.

 
          
The
day after that was New Year's Eve.

 
          
So
the seven of us set sail in that nameless boat an hour before
midnight
. It was a clear night. Stars stood
gem-bright in one half of the sky. In the other half, nothing: nothing but a
wall of darkness. It seemed to me as I hoisted a sail that the black wall was
an image of the coming year, containing only the darkness of death. No
phosphorescent little beasties silvered the water here. Half-starlight was our
only guide; though we did have lanterns, if we chose to light them. We chose
not to.

 
          
As
we sailed out ever so slowly, I brooded much upon the current.
Too much, perhaps.
The others likewise.
Our little ketch was eerily silent, as though we were all holding our breath.
Silent, that is, until Peli called out, "How about a song?"

 
          
"Be
quiet!" hissed someone.

 
          
"The
current doesn't have ears, dear!" And Peli began to warble one of our
river songs out over the lonely deaf waters:

 
          
"The River
Is
the giver Of life, Water-wife—!"

           
No, Peli definitely was
not
artistic.
Tone-deaf,
in fact.
Though doubtless the tune she was singing sounded fine in her
own head.

 
          
"Silence!"
called the thin woman from Spanglestream who was nominally in command.
"The current senses vibrations."

 
          
Does
it? Did it? I brooded some more.

 
          
We finally hove-to within fifty spans of that deeper darkness which
clove the dark waters.
We dropped a drift-anchor. A lookout watched
anxiously lest we glide closer, trailing drogue or not.

 
          
"Yaleen,"
came the thin woman's order, "
extend the boom
as
far as it'll go.
Peli, on the winch.
Andra, prepare to
receive the first bucketful.
Salandra. . . .
"
Something else.

 
          
So
I guided the first bucket, with its self-sealing lid, out above the edge of the
current on the long boom, and waited for the word to dunk the pail in and haul
out a portion of the black substance.

 
          
"All
ready?"

 
          
"Aye."
"Aye."
"Aye."

 
          
"Lower
away."

 
          
And
the bucket smacked into the current. . . .

 
          
Madness
seized me then.

 
          
Insanity
rushed over me like flames. I still knew what I was doing. But why I was doing
it, I had no idea. Nor had I any choice in the matter. It was as though that
pack of fortune cards had sucked me into them, and imprisoned me in a picture!
I still remember perfectly well how I scrambled up on the gunwale where the
base of the boom was secured. I even heard Peli cry out to me, though I
couldn't heed her. I even felt the brush of her fingertips as she tried to
snatch me back to safety. I even heard the thin woman shout, "No! If it
wants one of us, let it!" It made no difference.

           
Heedless I ran along that slim boom
outstretched across the water —like an acrobat. But no acrobat was I. No way
could I pause in my rush. No way could I pivot and return, had I wished to. As
it was, I had no wishes of my own. Only my mad forward momentum kept me from
toppling into the river before I even reached the current. But keep me it did;
and I raced all the way to the end of the boom— and beyond. For a moment it
even seemed that I was running onward through mid-air. But I fell, of course.
And was engulfed.

 
          
Questing
shapes swam around me, flashes of light dazzled me, soft tentacles slid up my
nostrils, down my throat, and elsewhere too— they entered every opening in me.
But I did not feel that I was suffocating; or drowning.

 
          
Yet
my life flashed by me willy-nilly.
Scenes of girlhood in
dusty Pecawar.
My initiation when I drank of the black current.
My deflowering by Hasso in his attic bower.
Verrino and its Observers.
Bonfires on the further bank . .
. All my secrets, all.

 
          
It
was as if I fell asleep. And dreams had come to me.
Yet not
for my entertainment.
They came to examine me, to walk around inside my
skull and see what was there.

 
          
"
Yaleen
, "
sang the dreams.
"Ya-leeeen!"
they wailed.

 
          
I
was aware of something immense and old and ... I could not say whether it was
wise as well.

 
          
It
had been watching us, though not with eyes. Rather, with little cells of
itself
which migrated through us, flavouring us and
savouring us before returning whence they came.

 
          
It
had been feeling us, though not with fingers. Yes, with
vibrations.
But I didn't understand what kind of vibrations these
were.

 
          
Or
was this simply what I had already been told about the current? What I had
mused about it? And now it was reading my musings back to me?

 
          
How
could I separate myself from this strange state I was in—so as to know which
was
me,
and which was
it?
I focused, like a dreamer trying to
waken in a dream and be aware: not of the ordinary waking world outside, but
of the world of the dream itself. I thought fiercely:

 
          
What are you?

           
And stars burned bright, and a world
turned round underneath me, seen from so high in the sky that the world was
only a ball, a plaything, a toy; and the sky was not blue but black.

 
          
What are you?
I thought again, twice as
fiercely—having no way to cry aloud.

 
          
And
far away I heard a slurred voice:

 
          
"The Worm of the World
lam.
There is no worm greater.
The worm moves not, it flows within itself. On the day when it shall move, the
whole world will turn upon its hinges . . .

           
"Till
then, the worm shall watch ... the flow of things.

           
"Of
Woman and
Man.
..."

           
Silence.

 
          
But why?
How? Who—?

           
Something hidden reared and coiled
around me. And within me too it coiled: it coiled around my mind. Crushing,
suffocating, erasing. As I sank into oblivion I thought that I felt some other
different creature, huge, slippery and scaly, rise beneath me.

 
          
To
my surprise I woke to light and life.

 
          
I
was soaking wet.
Lying on a shelf of mud.

 
          
Raising
my head, I saw spinach puree all before me, tangled up with tropic trees. One
of my cheeks blazed as if I had been punched. The back of my right hand pulsed
from the red weal of a stinger. But that was all there was, in the way of pain.

 
          
Pushing
my palms into the mud, I doubled up, knelt—and looked behind me. The river
flowed, almost lapping the toecaps of my boots.

 
          
I
rose, to stare out over the waters. Far away—so far that they just had to be
beyond the black current—I made out the sails and masts of a boat.
A boat which could only be on the eastern side of the waterway.

 
          
And
shivering in spite of the sticky heat, I knew: I was on the western bank. The
sun was halfway up the sky. It was New Year's Day, and I was still alive. And I
was all alone.

 
          
The
black current had taken me and squeezed me through its substance—and its
substance likewise through me—and then discarded me. I had been washed up on
the far shore. Borne here by some giant fish of the depths, perhaps; a fish commissioned
to carry me. . . .

 
          
My
first irrational thought was to try to swim back to the eastern bank. Ignoring
all stingers, since there didn't seem to be many hereabouts.
Ignoring the black current.
Crashing
through it regardless.
I would wave and shout, and be picked up by some
passing vessel. Alternatively I would swim all the way.

 
          
I
even went so far as to wade into the water, up to my ankles.

 
          
This
frantic nonsense soon gave way to reality. I contented myself with quickly
washing my hands clean of mud, retreated, and thought about my predicament.

 
          
Eventually,
I decided that my only hope was to walk to the area opposite Verrino, where
Capsi had first signalled to the watchers up the Spire.

 
          
I
could search for his diving suit and anti-stinger mask. He must have cached
them thereabouts. Maybe I could use them. Maybe the suit and mask were still
where he had hidden them. No westerners ever willingly strayed near the water.
Except for the riverwitches.

 
          
And
maybe the Sons of Adam had tortured the whereabouts out of him, and burned his
equipment too. . . .

 
          
If
I signalled with a mirror or a piece of broken glass, surely the Observers
would see me from Verrino Spire! Only they, along the whole length of the
river, would be looking for a signal from this side. Or if not actually
expecting one, patient enough and obsessive enough to look out in any case.

 
          
Verrino!
My only hope lay there: the only hope that I could tease out of this horror.