Return to the Whorl

by Gene Wolfe

Page 51

 

  Anyway, his mouth was sort of open, not just the ends of the lips turned up, and looking in it I saw those knives. They were the big ripping tusks in his bottom jaw. The curve was the same and the shape was almost the same except the knives were longer. The tusks he had here were the knives in the Red Sun Whorl.

  If I had been the girl, I would have given up after an hour or so. Maybe not even that long. She did not, and after a while I just wanted to get away from there. I went down in the waist, which was what you call the middle of a boat, and watched Juganu wrestle a sailor.

  When I went back up on the foredeck, she was still singing. The bird was on her shoulder, and Father was out on the bowsprit too, maybe four cubits behind her. He called me over, and when I had come as far as the grating, he told me to tell the captain to strike all sail. I took Babbie with me, and the captain did it. After that we just drifted, rolling a little. We were on the open sea, out of sight of land.

  People started coming up out of the water up ahead. I borrowed the second mates telescope to look at them, and they were all women. The ones closest to us were smaller, and the ones farther away were bigger, so they all seemed like they were about the same size. Some of the farthest-back ones were as tall as Father, Juganu, and. me put together. A lot had on black robes and cowls, but some were naked, especially the big ones farther back. The closest ones talked and sang, and called to us. I have never seen or even heard about anything else that was like that.

  The girl kept singing to them, and they got quieter and started to come toward us. It was like they were standing on something under the water that moved. The sailors were scared, and I saw them charging the swivel gun and told Babbie not to let them use it, and went forward again. By that time they were all around our boat. Two sort of rose up and talked to the girl and Father then, their robes getting longer and longer as they came up out of the water until they would have dragged behind them clear across the deck if they had been walking on the boat. There was something under them that the women were standing on, if those women had any feet.

  I went out on the grating deck again to look at the women, and one looked at me and smiled, and she had little sharp pointed teeth like tacks. Her eyes were all one color and sort of glowed or gleamed under the cowl. I went back as far as the foremast then, which is why I did not really hear anything they said or that Father and the girl said. I wanted to make myself a sword like Azoth, and I did, but it would not work for me, so I put a regular steel blade on it.

  After a while the women went back into the water, and Father and the girl came to tell me to tell the captain he could sail again and we would be leaving him for good. He gave me a ruby, too, that I had seen one of the big naked women give him. He said it was real, and the captain would still have it when we had gone. I told him about the woman who had looked at me and smiled and said, "Was that Scylla?" The girl was mad about it.

  After that we went home to our boat on Blue.

  It was night went we got back, and I said I would take the first watch, because I knew that with all I had to think about I would not sleep for a while. I told Juganu he could have my bunk if he wanted it, but pretty soon he came up and flew away. I knew he was going to look for blood to eat, and I wondered who he would find.

  Babbie was the only one on deck with me, but Babbie was asleep. So after that I just sat at the tiller the way you do with my slug gun across my lap and looked at the sea and the sky. It was calm and you could see a lot of stars. Green was up above the mainmast, and it seemed like if we put up the main top it would touch it. Our Green is not as big as theirs, but ours was plenty bright. The nicest thing was to see the reflections of all the stars dancing on the water.

  I thought about a lot then. You can imagine. Most of it was things I have already written down. I thought about shooting Juganu when he came back, too; I really wanted to. But I knew the shot would wake up Father and he would know. Even if it did not, he would ask me, and I would not be able to lie to him about it very long.

  Then the bird came and talked to me. That was not as nice as it sounds. For one thing, it was afraid. It would not come near enough for me to touch it. For another, I was talking to the girl too. She was not there to see, but she was there. The bird was up forward on the cabin deck, which is what we call the roof of the little cabin (it is planked and tarred like a regular deck and plenty strong enough to stand on) about halfway between me and Babbie. I could see it hopping around. I could not see the girl, but I knew she was in there. This is hard to explain.

  Out on the water there were the stars and quite a bit of light from Green; for nighttime it was really pretty bright, but there was sort of a shadow between the side and the water. Green was halfway up over to starboard. So to port there was this shadow, and I felt like she was down there, watching and listening, and she could make the bird talk for her when she wanted to.

  I had whistled to it, and it had whistled back. I could whistle better than it could, but it could whistle louder than I could, so for a little while we had fun like that. I would whistle "Tomcods Boat," and the bird would whistle back the first three or four notes.

  "Like bird?"

  "Sure," I said. "But Id like you better if you liked me better. " I knew it would not understand, but it was somebody to talk to.

  "Good bird!"

  I said, "Sometimes, maybe. "

  That made it mad and it said, "Good bird!" and "Bad boy!"

  "If youre such a good bird, what were you doing out on the bowsprit with Scylla?"

  That was the first time. The bird said, "I bad?" but I knew it was not really the bird talking.

  I admit I had to think about it. In the first place I did not like her. Then too, I felt like Father and Juganu and I, and even Babbie and the bird, had been real on the big river boat, but she had not been. I had not liked that. Then on our boat I felt like we were really real but she was not real at all. She could not make us see her or talk without Fathers bird. Maybe none of it had to do with her being bad, but I felt like it did. So I said, "Well, youre sure not good, Scylla. "

  "Good girl!"

  "Sure you are," I said. To tell the truth I was hoping she would leave the bird in charge and never come back.

  "You good? Good Hoof? Like Silk?"

  I figured there was no use fooling around with who is Silk? I knew shaggy well who Silk was. "No. Hes a better man than Ill ever be. "

  "Your pa? Tell lie!"

  "If he told them who he is, theyd want to make him calde and Gyrfalcon would kill him. "

  "Good Silk!" She laughed, sort of bubbling and giggling.

  "Bad Scylla," I told her. "Why dont you go fishing?"

  "He kill? Kill pa. "

  I said, "I dont think so. "

  "Good girl! Not kill!"

  "Oh, sure. Well, you wanted Auk to kill that old fisherman for you once. I read all about it. "

  "My man!"

  I said, "Maybe. But you dont own me. "

  She laughed some more and got me real mad. I said, "Nobody ought to own other people, and if they do they shouldnt kill them unless theyve done something terrible. Besides, you tried to kill your father. Thats why youve got to hide. You wanted to and if you had youd be a murderer. I think you are anyway. "

  The bird whistled, and I thought she had gone away. We whistled back and forth, then it said, "We slaves. Pas own. "

  I said, "Thats the way Sinew used to talk. "

  "Who?" I think it had surprised her.

  "Our other brother. Hes older than Hide and me. Father says hes still alive on Green and has two sprats, but he used to talk like that a lot. Our real father would try to get him to help in the mill, and there would be big fights. Or he would start some kind of work and go away, so our father would have finish it, or Hide and me would. "

  "Like slave!" That had gotten to her. "Pas say. I do. "

  I said, "He was your father. He fed you and gave you a place to live, and clothes. " />
  "I fed! Eat sheep. Eat boy. "

  "Like Juganu. "

  She let the bird talk a while after that, and I tried to get it to come to me, but it would not. "Bad boy! No, no!"

  Pretty I stopped trying. I let out a reef in the mainsail, and trimmed it a little.

  "Kill bird?"

  I said, "You think Id wring your birds neck if I could catch it?"

  "Yes!"

  I spat.

  "You would!"

  I showed the bird my slug gun. "See this? If I wanted to kill you, I could just shoot your shaggy bird and throw it over the side. It would take about ten seconds. Only Im not going to do it. Or wring its neck, either. In the first place you stole it. Its Fathers bird. Besides, just because I dont like somebody doesnt mean I want to kill them. Thats what you gods used to do, from what I hear. But Im not like you. "

  "No need," she said. "I die. "

  "Sure, when the bird does. "

  Juganu said, "Tomorrow. Didnt the Rajan tell you?"

  I had not known he was back, but he was right at my elbow.

  "Were going back tomorrow. I wanted to go back at once, but he wouldnt agree. Well have to find the grave of Typhons daughter Cilinia. Its in a place called the Necropolis. "

  I said, "What for?"

  "That will be the last time. The Rajan said after that I might as well leave you, and I probably will. "

  I wanted to know if he knew why Father wanted to go to Cilinias grave, and the bird said, "Why ask?"

  "He made an agreement with Scylla," Juganu told me.

  "What was it?"

  Juganu shrugged and sat down on the gunwale. His arms had gotten short and round again, and his legs and his feet were not big and flat anymore like they are when they fly. He was just a little old man, naked, with blood on his breath; and I thought how if it had been Jahlee she would have made big tits to tease me. He said, "I thought you might know. "

  I said I did not.

  "Would you tell me if you did?"

  "Unless he said not to. "

  The bird laughed. I had heard it laugh before, but I did not like it.

  "He made an agreement with that monster in the water," Juganu said again. "Favor for favor. He told me that much. He promised to take Scylla to the grave. That was his part of their bargain, but I dont know hers. "

  I was thinking about finding the grave. "Its been three hundred years. Thats what they say. "

  Father was coming up out of the cabin, and he said, "Its been much longer than that, but I have a friend who knows the place like the back of his hand. "

  I am stopping here so that the others can write for a while. It has been a lot of work, a lot more than I expected. So I will let them tell about what Juganu did and all that. I will just help. I will get Daisy to go over this and fix it up, too. Or Hide and Vadsig would.

  Chapter 18. HOW HE CAME TO BLUE

  "Yer come ter see auld Pig. Twas good a yer, bucky. " Pigs beard and shaggy hair were gone, but his head was still huge.

  "No, Pig. " Pigs visitor shook his own much smaller head, knowing that Pig could not see it. "I came so that you might see me. "

  Pig touched the bandage above his nose, the self-sterilizing pad that had replaced his gray rag. "They winna take hit hoff, bucky. Gang ter do hit yerself?"

  He looked at the nurse in the glass, who nodded. "Yes," he said. "Yes, Pig. I am. "

  His fingers located the knot, and he slipped one slender blade of the surgical scissors beneath it. "Silk found scissors like this in the balneum, and later Doctor Crane used scissors of the same kind when he treated Silk. I dont know why that should touch me, but it does. " Savoring the sensation, he cut.

  "Bucky. . . "

  "If you cannot see, you will be no worse than you were. "

  The nurse said, "And well find out why, and fix it. " There was a warmth in her voice that made each word a benediction.

  Pig said nothing, but his big hands were shaking.

  "You havent had much practice lately, Pig. " The bandage was loose, lying limply across Pigs eyes. "Thats what they told me, and I must tell you the same thing. If you can see-"

  Apropos of nothing, Oreb announced, "Good Silk. "

  "What you see may be blurred until you re-learn how to interpret visual images. "

  The room had darkened as he spoke, the lights on the ceiling fading to mere specks of gold; he looked at the glass and saw the nurse manipulating a control. She nodded, and he lifted the bandage away.

  "Bucky. . . ?" One of Pigs hands found his.

  "Your eye is still closed, Pig. "

  "He kens hit, bucky. Sae braw? Hes nae!" Pigs eyelids fluttered.

  "Braver than I would be. "

  Pigs head rolled on the pillow.

  The nurse said, "It doesnt exactly go with his coloring. "

  Pigs right hand left the sheet in a peremptory gesture. "Wants ter see yer, ter see ther twa a yer tergether. Dinna never want ter forget yer. "

  "See bird?"

  "Aye. " Naked now, the wide, thin-lipped mouth curved upward. "Pig sees yer, ter, Horeb. Bucky. . . ?" Pig choked, coughed, and at last recovered.

  "You have a blue eye now, Pig. Like my own. "

  When the nurses glass had faded to silver-gray, Pig ventured, "Yer gang ter stay wit me, bucky?"

  He nodded, knowing Pig could see his nod and glorying in it. "Until Hari Mau finds me, and makes me go with him. "

  "Bird go?"

  "Yes, Oreb. Certainly, if you want it. Ill be flattered. "

  "Pig ter, bucky?"

  He was taken aback. "Would you want to?"

  "Aye. " Pigs voice was firm.

  Slowly, he shook his head.

  "Seen me Nears. "

  "That has nothing to do with it. I am flattered, Pig. Im humbled. But unless a god were to tell me otherwise, my answer must be no, for both our sakes. "

  "Auld Pigd gae, bucky. "