by Hegira (lit)
If they were heading into the Pale Seas, their course would take them past Pallasta's northern borders and Weggismar-che. If there was nothing left in Weggismarche or Nin, then there was no reason why they shouldn't sail to the Wall itself. The first engine mate, a burly, hairy man, spoke to Bar-Woten as they watched from the poop deck.
"It's useless if we haven't got a home to come back to sometime or other," he said. He rolled his sleeves up and tied them with lengths of rope. "Let's go below and tend that rod. We're going to have to steam it up fine to follow that thing, and the captain's bound to keep us on wood. No chance to rest and switch over."
In and out, steam and water and heat coursed. It was the only Me and hope Bar-Woten recognized. He imagined them captured by unknown men; killed, perhaps. He fell into a black funk and watched the rod smoulder, making mechan-ical movements to cool and relieve it.
Seventeen
The coast of Weggismarche was covered with falling snow. Ships passed them going in several directions up and down the coast, but none were from Pallasta or Weggismarche. All came from the Pale Seas: fast, unknown, depressing. The air temperature fell so rapidly that frost and sea ice formed on the deck and rigging. At the same time humidity increased until they drifted through a freezing fog. All crew, on or off scheduled watches, worked to clear the deck and rigging of ice. Winter was coming late, but with a vengeance.
The fog obscured their view of most of Weggismarche. Perversely, hope rose among the crew that somehow their country had been spared the worst destruction of the Fall; that they might slip away when the fog was thick enough and return to their home. It would be a long battle with these men from the Pale Seas, they said, but it would be better than not knowing - it would be better than dying in sight of the Wall where the world ended.
Prekari stayed isolated.
Kiril made sketches of the submarine and ship-on-legs whenever it was clear enough to see them. After a few hours of peering through thinning fog and straining his eyes in the murky light, he had enough details to piece together what he thought the ship-on-legs looked like from all sides.
It had at least four small guns on each side and two large ones fore and aft. Tubes were mounted port and starboard, and banks of rectangular boxes squatted on the fantail.
Dishes studded a mast rising over the bridge. The vessel made a hideous roar when it was up to full speed and shot thin gray smoke from vents in the middle of the flat stern.
The submarine, what he could see of it, appeared to be fish-shaped, like a tuna, with a thickened fin directly behind its head. This tower, or sail, was gun-metal gray. The back of the sub was decked with dark varnished wood.
The second day of their capture took them past the northernmost peninsula of Weggismarche where the Obelisk had once stood. It lay on its side, spanning the isthmus like a bridge, buried in one mountain range on the peninsula and another on the continent, half its width lost in solid rock. It didn't appear broken as far as they could see, but the horizon swallowed its length in gray cloud. They passed the severed base of the Obelisk and saw it was smooth, as though cut by some unthinkable saw. The base thrust out beyond the mountain range of the peninsula and soared, a kilometer in the air, a square piece of chalk mounted on a rock-giant's ear. Where it had struck ground, flows of molten rock had cooled in curled gray rivers, some reaching to the sea. All around was charred desolation. Kiril looked at the destruc-tion without any particular emotion. It was too incredible to believe. It seemed more likely that the Obelisk should have buried itself completely and been covered over.
The fallen spire was a monumental thing, like a stick thrust into an ant nest, its only purpose to stir up human lives. He loathed it and what it stood for - knowledge, gain, static civilizations, endless cyclopean achievement - all of it.
Hegira, too, had fallen in his eyes. The world was no longer self-evident axiom. It had to prove itself all over again before it could regain its solidity.
The submarine guided them into progressively shallower waters that changed color from deep blue-gray to gray-green.
The waves took on a dismal milky sheen. The air became dry and very cold. And nowhere, besides the ships that escorted them, did they see any signs of life.
They were in the Pale Seas.
On the fourth day, land appeared off the port bow. It was a narrow spit of sandy beach shrouded with thick ground fog. "It's embarrassed to show itself," Bar-Woten com-mented. Dusty green bushes dotted its northern slopes. It passed to stern by midday. By evening, on the starboard, sheer cliffs of reddish stone rose from the muddy sea. Birds wheeled around the waterline in white puffs. Their cries sounded like children mourning. A hooked and baited line dropped over the side brought up a small, almost featureless smeltlike fish, silvery when first pulled from the water, but milk white in death.
The submarine guided them into a barren, rocky harbor on the eighth day of their capture. They were ordered to drop anchor and await further instructions from the ship-on-legs, which was called a "hydrofoil." The submarine submerged and moved deeper into the harbor.
The captain ordered a sample taken from the water, and a cup was lowered over the side bringing up a liter of silty liquid. Prekari tentatively dipped his finger into it and tasted a drop. "It's not salty now," he said. "We're not in an ocean at all. We must be in a river."
Parts of the puzzle of the Pale Seas began to fall into place. From a few hundred kilometers north of Weggismarche on, the Pale Seas were actually one enormous river delta, conveying mud and silt from lands thousands of kilometers beyond. But the size of the river was staggering - where was its source? At the Wall?
Barthel learned from Avra why few Weggismarche sailors had ever traveled into the Pale Seas, and none as far as this. More than legends of unknown danger the Pale Seas were periodically flooded with a poisonous discharge, noxious gases rising from the effluent and discouraging passage. The peninsular Obelisk, it was assumed, marked a boundary line, since no other Obelisks could be seen to the north. What that implied, no one knew. But to the inhabitants of Weggis-marche, Pallasta, and the lands around them, the north was obviously inhospitable. Yet now they had proof that people lived there.
The ship-on-legs hailed them by late afternoon and instructed them to weigh anchor. They were going to leave the harbor and sail against the current. Fortunately, the wind would be with them.
By evening they saw smoke and haze. They pushed at full steam against the relentless water, sails taking a stiff breeze and masts and spars creaking with the strain. An unpleasant odor rose to greet them, subtler but more acrid than the single smell of the methane tanks. It stung the nostrils and made the eyes water.
From the distant shore, plumes of smoke rose from a colonnade of stacks. The air was filled with grease and soot. A brief, unpleasant thought occurred to Kiril - they were heading into hell, and fire and ice lay beyond.
The night was sleepless and unpleasant. As they lay at anchor in a small inlet, outside the swirling current, the darkness filled with the roar of machines and the bellow of furnaces. The wind had dropped and now smoke drifted thick about them, a foggy pall slowly closing in to suffocate. Barthel confessed he didn't like it at all. The trio met on the main deck at midnight and talked about what they'd do if they had to abandon ship. Barthel was reluctant to think about that; Kiril, on the other hand, was almost anxious. "I don't see any other chance," he said. "We'd be better off on our own now - "
"How's that?" Bar-Woten asked. "We don't know the local language, or what type of people live here, or anything we'd need to know if we wanted to slip by unnoticed. I'm frightened by these machines - I'll admit that and laugh at anyone who says he isn't."
"You've lost the spirit of the thing. We're supposed to proceed whenever possible," Kiril said.
The Ibisian examined Kiril in the dim glow of their covered lantern. The Mediwevan stared into the dark.
"Not when we walk into an open fire instead of around it," Barthel said, shifting from his sea
t of ropes to the wooden deck. Kiril snorted.
"Listen," Bar-Woten hissed. "If this ship gets into a position no one can escape from, then we are trapped, too, and that's no good, I'll admit. We'll have to avoid that. But for the moment we can only wait and see. If the people who run the machines are as wise as they are clever, we may be better off than we think."
A whistle blasted beyond the hills surrounding the inlet. It sounded like a dying saurian. Kiril sweated profusely, though the night air was almost freezing.
"So we do nothing," he said. "We sit and wait to die and give it all up."
Bar-Woten turned to the glowing night air beyond the hills and licked his dry lips.
Eighteen
The morning was obscured by fog. It would be a bad time to cut and run in unfamiliar territory. Most of the Trident's crew waited on deck for the fog to clear, talking and playing cards or resting quietly. Kiril wrote in a bound notebook he had bought from the ship's purser, who had a surplus of ledgers and logs. His entries were generally short, but this morning he was prolix. He stopped occasionally to put his pencil to the dp of his lower lip and reread his entry. He frowned. Then he set pencil to paper again and continued his pinched scrawl.
"How did you ever become a scrittori with handwriting like that?" Bar-Woten asked. Kiril looked up with a start at the Ibisian standing beside him and scowled fiercely.
"I'd like some privacy," he said, closing the book with a slap and putting the pencil behind his ear under a lock of hair. The Ibisian shrugged and started to walk away. Kiril looked distinctly miserable, then called for him. "I'm sorry," he said. "Come back and sit down." He patted the deck across from where he squatted. Bar-Woten returned just as stoically as he had left and sat. "We shouldn't fight all the time," Kiril said.
"No need for it," Bar-Woten agreed. "Not today, at least. We've chosen our fate."
"How's that?"
"We're going to run for it and follow the fog."
"How?"
"It will break with the wind and the wind is going south today, very gentle. We'll weigh anchor when we can see more to the north than to the south. The captain knows we have a clear channel directly east. We'll sound and follow the currents."
"But the submarine can see us whether there's fog or not."
"I don't see how," Bar-Woten said. "Water's silty."
"It must have some way. These ships don't sound as they sail; they just move."
"The submarine isn't here today anyway, unless it moved in during the night, and nobody heard anything. When the sub moves you can hear it in the hull."
Kiril shook his head dubiously and leaned against the back of a vent. "We won't get away that easily."
"We'll see."
They never had a chance to try their plan. Before the fog lifted the submarine was heard on the surface. When the fog thinned they saw two ships-on-legs moving too slowly to show their foils. Clusters of men in dark uniforms stood on the decks. A bull horn was brought out, and one of the men in black hailed the Trident.
"Captain Prekari!"
The captain came forward and answered the call.
"I am Vice-Admiral Gyorgi Lassfal, in command of Ocean Restoration. I was formerly in command of the Weggismar-che Merchant Navy. Do you recognize my voice?"
Prekari, standing on the wing of the bridge, answered that he did not - further identification would be necessary. An exchange of personal pleasantries followed, which left no doubt in Prekari's mind that he was talking to his bureau-cratic superior. He passed the word along the deck.
"Captain, I have been invited here to tell you there is no danger. These men wish us no harm. In fact, they want our help in the Restoration. Am I allowed to board your ship and explain these things to you?"
Prekari told him he could come aboard alone.
The vice-admiral was brought to the lowered gangway by a small motor-launch. He came aboard without ceremony and was ushered quickly into Prekari's stateroom. There was nothing left to do on deck but watch the rising fog and examine the near ships more closely.
By midday the vice-admiral left the Trident, and Prekari came back to the quarterdeck. He stood on the boat platform to tell them what had been decided.
"Weggismarche, Pallasta, and Nin are now under control of Northerners," he began. He cleared his throat and leaned on a davit. Bar-Woten thought of the day they had first met him, stomping along the deck to his cabin; now he looked tired and weak, half the man he had been. "That is, they are under the care of these people... who have lived in peace for many hundreds of years. The weapons and ships, they say, are defensive, used only when exploring in dangerous waters. I believe that story is true on the whole. So does Vice-Admiral Lassfal. They've come south to see what aid they can give to our country.
"They are building emergency shelters for the survivors. The factories we passed are for that purpose. The admiral claims they were brought here piece by piece in the last few weeks. They have ships much larger than any of ours. There are only five or six million people left in our country, a few more in the lands south. Most were killed when the Obelisk fell. All of our cities have been destroyed. The weather has changed. The crops are all gone of course, and so is our livelihood. It sounds as if they might be benevolent, but I think they have other motives. Not unreasonable motives, mind you, but ulterior nonetheless. They have come to read the Obelisk. They have requested our help in digging out the buried portions - as much as possible - and reading and deciphering. The admiral tells me this is a monumental task, enough to fill decades, perhaps centuries. In that time the Northerners will support us, help rebuild, reestablish our economy - apparently making the Obelisk the center of all business and trade. They seem to be decent people - strong-willed, but not unreasonable. They have certain moral strictures we are requested to abide by. These will be outlined at a later date. There is nothing that should be repugnant to us...." He didn't sound completely con-vinced. Kiril frowned. The captain's message seemed one of defeat - defeat without war, without even preliminary defiance.
"The Obelisk is a thousand kilometers long. Until now, we've never had a chance to read more than a few kilometers of its surface. We've known that the history of the First-born extended far higher, with knowledge we could never hope to attain by ourselves. We are now offered the chance." He added in a lower voice, "But at what a cost!" The crew of the Trident was deathly still. The fog was gone now. They could smell the smoke from the factories.
"We have nothing else to do. We can't trade our cargo, we can't buy necessary materials and parts, we can't leave the Pale Seas and survive for long with our hearts cut out of us. We have to regrow our hearts here, by giving up the sea, if need be, or working in whatever way we can with this ship to help rebuild Weggismarche. Of this I am convinced. Are you convinced with me?"
The crew said nothing. Then, as if by one motion, they looked over the starboard side to the rugged and denuded land and agreed in a low rumble. Kiril spoke with them, and Barthel nodded with a catch in his throat, mixed fear and sorrow.
Bar-Woten stood silent with his one eye fixed on Prekari and his lips set. It would soon be time to begin the third leg of their journey.
Nineteen
From the top of Barometer Mountain, two kilometers above the barren plains that stretched to the Pale Seas, the long, geometric bulk of the Obelisk could be seen for at least four hundred kilometers. At the horizon, half of its bulk was buried in the rock and soil of Hegira. Closer than that, the curve of the planet slacked away from the spire until its end spanned the isthmus of Weggismarche and wedged into another mountain four kilometers from Barometer.
Kiril looked down the southern slope and saw the base camp of the surveying party from the Trident, and in the bay beyond, the Trident herself, tiny as a toy in a puddle. He turned his eyes skyward and shielded them. The light that had replaced the Obelisk's glow was at its noontime peak. Clouds drifted in patches across its concentrated center, casting broad shadows over Barometer and the bay. Bar-W
oten climbed slowly and deliberately over the rock pile that edged the northern slope of the peak, and joined Kiril. Barthel wasn't far behind.
"I'm beginning to piece together this stuff about the Wall of the World," Bar-Woten said, regaining his breath with even, deep inhalations. "It's five thousand kilometers from here, to the north, which explains why there are no more Obelisks visible no matter how far north you travel. From what I understand, the Wall itself gives off a glow at the top. There may be smaller Obelisks there or normal ones just beyond it."
"How tall is it?" Kiril asked. Barthel stood beside them and leaned on his climbing pkk, his face red and sweaty.
"At least as tall as an Obelisk."
Kiril looked down the northern slope and saw a helicopter landing on a broad rock outcrop, like a bee setting down on a stony gray flower. "Is it true there's writing on the Wall, too?"
