"No, no, you're right!" She was, too. It seems astonishing in retrospect, but I had never actually asked myself this. I took it for granted, because it had happened to me. Like everyone else I was the heroine of my own life, the centre of the universe et cetera. Why shouldn't something extraordinary steer itself my way?
"Maranda wondered about that," volunteered Laudia.
"What, old Nothing-Bothers-Me?"
"That would bother her. She's been presiding over the annual trip for years. So when she heard you'd come back from the West, and hadn't been driven mad and drowned, she started puzzling. And she came up with an answer. You were very young to be honoured, Yaleen. I don't know why! Not quite two years on boats, and there you were sailing to the current—"
"I could tell you why, but it's a long story, full of junglejack festivals and. . . ." (And fungus drugs. Better not tell it after all. . . .)
"Let's just ascribe it to your sterling qualities, eh?"
"Um. Right. Qualities now in demand again . . . But what's the answer?"
"That you'd drunk the current more recently than anyone else who ever made the New Year's Eve trip. So maybe that's why it called you. Because you were more in tune with it."
"More in time? That doesn't figure. The current can call a girl who fails her initiation, from a whole league away! It can call a man who tries to travel twice—"
"It can't talk to them, only craze them and destroy them. That's why Maranda is bringing a fresh slug of the current on board tomorrow: some of the new vintage for you to drink. Plus some left over from last year, in case this year's has something wrong with it."
"Oh, shit! Look, I got through the current again just a bit ago. I probably swallowed dribbles and dribbles of it."
"But did it talk to you? Maybe it couldn't quite reach you."
"Maybe it couldn't be bothered."
"So another slug or so should time you up nicely."
"Time me up, indeed!" I swung round. "Peli, dear Peli," I begged, "give us all a real tune."
"Okay." And Peli gave voice.
Now, this might have been unkind if we had just sat and listened, grinning within. But we didn't. We all joined in; and not simply to drown Peli out. For the song was that irresistible one:
Under the bright blue sun
River-run, river-run!
Under the stars on high
Sails fly, sails fly!
Under the masts so tall . . .
Presently Sal held up the signed glass again, canting it to catch the light. "Our boat ought to have a naming, too!"
"Why not?" agreed Marth. "Fat lot of use Old Nameless'll be if the current never comes back."
"What name does the current need to heed?" Delli thumped the bulkhead. "Boat, I name thee Yaleen!"
"I'll go one better/' promised Sal, "I'll paint Yaleen on the prow tomorrow."
We all laughed. I didn't think she would do it.
Next morning Quaymistress Maranda boarded, bringing with her the "diving suit", air-bottles and rope. And when she boarded, Sal was hanging over the side, just finishing daubing my name in yellow paint. Maranda grumbled and growsed at this defacing of her precious ketch, till Laudia exclaimed exasperatedly, "We can always black it out afterwards!" Sensing unified opposition, Maranda conceded.
I drank her slugs of the black current, to no very noticeable effect; and soon we set sail.
All too quickly for me we reached the head of the river—and the worm's head, protruding gargoyle-like from that submerged stone arch with its chin resting on the water.
Was the sight more appalling by daylight? I'd feared it would be. Yet I found I could control my rising hysteria by telling myself that this thing wasn't alive—it was simply a mound of crudely-sculpted mud, or maybe basalt covered with mould.
When I'd last seen the worm's head, it was moving. Now it wasn't. The only movement was of water lapping it. Just so long as it didn't move! Just so long as a white eye didn't blink—why, that eye could be a slash of chalk! Even the drool in the worm's jaws hung motionless, like slimy stalactites.
We manoeuvred the Yaleen through some down-beating air turbulence almost up to the lip itself, deep-anchoring in the very lee of the Precipice where there was a pocket of calm.
The Precipice! Ah, better that I hadn't looked upwards! I couldn't believe that what loomed above could be a vertical rockface. It just had to be the real surface of the world. In which case, how come we were floating vertical to it?
The whole world bent abruptly at right-angles here, causing an awesome sense of vertigo. For a moment I imagined this was the effect of the slugs I'd drunk. But no; it was a consequence of the planet being hinged in half. I didn't dare look up again or I would fall, fall upward.
We worked silently most of the time, and spoke in hushed tones if we had to say anything. I don't think this was for fear of alerting the worm. No, it was because any words would be as stray melting snowflakes in that place; they would vanish before they could make their mark.
Sparki and Sal helped me don the diving costume. They strapped the bodice skin-tight, then slotted in the air-bottles behind, which effectively blocked access to the straps themselves. The helmet was clamped to the brass collar, a valve was turned and I breathed bottled air smelling faintly of burnt oil. Maranda locked one end of the thin tough rope to my belt at the base of my spine; the rest of the rope lay in loose coils, with the far end tied to the capstan. She lit my lamp and clipped this to the bracket on my helmet. Then Peli thrust out the gangplank, on to the lip of the worm.
We were ready. I was ready. (And a little voice was gibbering somewhere, "Ready? How can anyone ever be ready for this?" I ignored the voice inside my head, since it was my own and I didn't wish it to reach my lips.)
Peli squeezed me in her arms, provoking one of the few sounds: a loud "tssk" of disapproval from Maranda, in case any of my fine equipment, product of the best Tambimatu artificers, should get scratched or crumpled before the worm could have its way. . . .
Then I walked the plank, with the rope paying out lightly behind me. I stepped on to the lower lip cautiously in case it was slippery and I skidded off into the water. Which would be an uncomfortable and ignominious beginning. But in fact the surface of the lip felt tacky, like paint which hadn't quite dried; and it yielded to the pressure of my feet, giving lots of grip.
Turning, I saluted the Yaleen with my diamond ring upraised. I don't know that the crew recognized the gesture as a salute; maybe they thought I was giving them the finger. I elbowed a dangling rope of drool aside—it didn't snap, just bent. I elbowed another gooey streamer, and shoved my way between them.
The inside walls of the mouth were bulgy and bumpy, and so dark they seemed to drink my lamplight. To see, I had to swing my head from side to side. Shadows ducked and dodged, as if racing round to ambush me from behind. I couldn't flick the beam too fast without dizzying my brains. Above me I saw a dark dome, sprouting warts the size of cushions. . . .
Hard to look down, encumbered as I was with helmet, bodice and bottles . . . but a ridgy floor below. Slicker and firmer than the lip.
As I stepped on in, my legs started to shake. Scared? Of course I was scared.
And of course that wasn't why my legs were wobbling.
To say that the floor split open under me would be too precise by far. It would grossly flatter the chaos of the next few moments. Before I knew it, I was a toddler careering down her first carnival slide, shrieking aloud . . . Rope snaking behind . . . Black jelly curve above . . . Light swirling, head thumping and bumping . . . Then the lamp went out. I only realized I'd been swallowed when I was already half-way down the gullet.
The tube swooped upwards briefly. Impetus carried me over a brink. I sprawled in pitch darkness.
And now I was shaking like a leaf. I'd pissed myself too. Hot at first, then clammy-cold. The blackness was absolute. In fact, you couldn't even call it blackness. It was nothing. I might as well have gone blind.
I lay v
ery still. Or tried to. Since nothing further happened, I rolled over after a bit and felt about. Soft clammy texture here . . . Slithery and harder over there, like muscle . . . My fingers closed on a tentacle, shied away. Ah, it was the rope! My safety line. Should I jerk it? Give three tugs for "Pull me back, quick"?
But beyond being gulped down, nothing dire had happened. At least I wasn't floundering in acid juice. I continued exploring, very gently. Each new span my fingers touched was so much extra safety, so much breathing space. And so much extra cause for jitters, because the very next grope might bring me up against . . . who knew what?
I thought my blind eyes were playing tricks: I saw a flash, a flicker.
I shuffled about, and focused on a spot of shimmery blue. This brightened to a glowing patch. I held very still, hardly breathing. Perhaps the light was only a few spans from my face. In which case, it was far too close! The glow continued to intensify, but since this had no effect on the darkness near at hand, it must be distant. Then all of a sudden everything adjusted mentally, and I knew that I was peering along a tunnel of some kind, which eventually debouched into somewhere far larger that was aglow with blue light. I stood up, stretched tall, and my fingertips brushed the roof above. Shuffling to left then to right, arms outstretched, I discovered curving walls; these were squashy, though interspersed with stiffer "muscle-ribs".
So I began to plod forward in the direction of the light, holding my hands ahead of me. After the first ten paces I stepped out more boldly. And the glow increased in apparent size.
* * *
A few minutes later I stood in the doorway to a cavern that was eerie and enchanting. Curving walls and vaulted roof were ribbed and buttressed with blue bone, or stiffened muscle. All across a misty floor fronds waved like underwater weed. Warts humped up through the low mist and hairy "vegetation" in a line of stepping stones. And all glowed softly in various tones of light or dark blue: the fronds were almost mauve, the warts a brighter turquoise as though to mark the way. The cavern was long, long. Far off, the ground mist seeped upward to become a general dense azure fog. Was this cavern part of the Worm—or was the Worm's substance coating cavern walls?
The stepping stones led straight to a kind of island: a large hump of milky, veiny powder-blue. "Opal Island", I thought, giving it a name.
And here was I, held back in the very doorway by that damned rope! Which Maranda had so thoughtfully locked on to me, in case any meddling little fingers inside the Worm unknotted it. By now the rope had reached its limit.
Retreating a few paces, I gathered slack—and set to work fraying the rope with my diamond. Obviously I had to go on into the womb-cavern—why else had it lit up for me? I sawed away till I thought the stone might part from its setting; but Tambimatu craftsmanship prevailed. As well it should; I'd paid a whole bag of coins for the ring! At last the strands parted.
Pry as I might, I couldn't budge the air bottles; though at least I could unclamp the helmet, which was steaming up. . . .
The cavern air smelled faintly of dead fish and humus; nothing very stomach-churning—no swamp-gas or intestinal stenches. Once the helmet was wrenched free, the bottled air blew an annoying draught against my neck; I would probably end up with a stiff neck or earache. . . .
Still and silent stretched the cavern, save for a slight bubbling or susurrus amidst the misty fronds.
Should I bellow out, "I'm here"? The worm must know that already. I kept quiet.
I trod across the stepping stones—without any bother—and reached Opal Island. Closer up, this took on the proportions of the glazed buttock of a giantess: with veins of milky blue flowing within, and a large vague shape like a huge bone, inside towards the top. A rim ran right round the base. As soon as I set foot on this rim, the whole island quaked. Hastily I hopped back on to the nearest stepping stone.
The trembling quickened; shivers ran up the slope, overtaking one another—then there was a sudden loud "plop". The whole top of the island split open.
Two seams flopped apart, and a human arm emerged. It wagged about as though waving to me. A bald head and bare shoulders followed. Unsteadily, a naked man stood up. His skin was the unhealthy white of someone newly unwrapped from a long spell in bandages. He looked like a big jungle-grub. His groin was as nude of hair as his skull.
The man regarded me out of watery blue eyes—then he took a step, and slipped, and skidded all the way down the side of the island on his buttocks, fetching up with a thump on the rim.
"I—" he croaked. Abruptly he retched up a volume of thin white liquid. Maybe I hadn't too much to worry about from this fellow! Wiping his chin, he tottered erect, and contrived a smile—he pushed at his cheeks with his fingers as though trying on a mask for size.
"Hullo, I'm to be your guide. The current took me . . . some time ago. I tried to stow away, see. The current kept my body intact, so now I'm representing it."
"A man is representing it?"
He examined himself in surprise. "Goodness, I haven't been a man for ages. . . ."
"You haven't been . . . Are you crazy?"
"Actually, I'm dead ... It kept my body, see. I've been living other lives, in the /Ta-store."
"In the what?" For "Ka" was the name the Westerners gave to the mind-part of a person. They said the Ka flew back to Eeden when the body died. Flew to another world . . . "Are you from the West Bank?" I demanded.
"No . . . Sarjoy, once. . . ."
"You did just say 'Ka', though?"
He nodded.
"Are the Westerners telling the truth, then? About the God-Mind on Eeden? How can there be a Ka-store here? What is it? What does—?"
He flapped his hands in distress. "Please!" The dead man gestured at another line of stepping stones continuing along the cavern towards the azure fog. "Could we possibly . . . ? Sooner we go, sooner I get back to my dreams."
"Go where?"
"To the Ka-store."
"How can there be a Ka-store here? This isn't Eeden. The current isn't the God-Mind—or is it?"
He slumped down and clasped his hands around his knees. Maybe he had difficulty standing up, after being dead for so long. . . .
"I suppose we've time to spare," he conceded.
"Time? You do realize there's a war on? That good people are being butchered? And all because the current withdrew! Was it poisoned?"
"If only you'd stop bombarding me . . . Yes, I realize there's a war on. No, the current wasn't poisoned. Will you listen to me? The black current can store the Kas of the dead, so long as people were close to it in life. As it links more Kas in its store, so its mind grows in power."
"You mean to tell me that all riverwomen who ever lived are still alive here?"
"Well, they're dead, but yes. They dream each other's lives now. And as they interweave, so the creature who was here before us all seeks . . . seeks the mind-key to the universe."
"Oh." The mind-key to the universe. Tamath had speculated that there was a key stuck down the worm's throat ... So it was the key to the universe, was it? But apparently the worm, too, was still hunting for it. Just then I remembered what Andri had told me: that people couldn't simply arrive on a foreign world and merrily fit in from the word go. "Did the current shape this world for us?" I asked.
"I don't follow you."
I did my best to explain. "Did the current alter this world so we could eat and drink and breathe here?" I ended up.
"Quite the contrary! The world grew of its own accord. So did the current. I don't quite know how its body works, but I do know that it takes energy from water. It splits and bums and changes water . . . Well, aeons ago it floated off down the river. And it made a big mistake. On its own, you see, it has no more brain than a worm in the soil. But it can use other minds. It has a thirst for them, it can drink them. And after drinking them it can start to think."
"I sometimes feel that way myself."
The zombi looked irked. "Really? Well, the current sensed dawning minds on the land.
So it exerted itself to use these minds. But they were only dawning, and it quenched them instead. They withered and died out. Then for aeons more it just lay inertly, sensing only the slow dim wits of fish and the like. It hoped other creatures might become aware, if it let them alone."
"How could it hope for anything, if it hadn't a mind of its own?"
"It sensed. It felt. The flow of its being is to know, through others. To absorb, to drink. . . ."
"So then I guess the Ship from Eeden arrived at Port Firsthome?"
It had indeed. Yet for aeons the creature had been sluggish. It had simply been existing at the bottom of the river like a vegetable.
Before it could grasp what was happening, the world had half changed. New plants and fish and animals were mingling with the native ones, in some cases pushing the old life aside, in other cases even cross-breeding.
Suddenly as if from nowhere, bright strong minds were present. Young minds, printed with mature purpose, newly dressed in knowledge. This was the first generation of settlers.
Amongst whom, the current dimly detected two varieties of being: those of Flow, and those of Thrust. The one, compatible with it; the other, alien. Excited, confused, it rose from the depths, putting forth its senses—to be dazzled, blinded.
It still couldn't "think" about any of this—which in any case after all those dormant aeons seemed to happen instantaneously. And almost immediately, a vast intelligence from far away shone through these bright new minds as through a window; touched the current, tasted it, tried to extinguish it.
This distant intelligence was a being of Thrust, rejoicing in its grandeur and dominion. So, at any rate, it seemed to the current, when the current tried to analyse events long afterwards. However, this ambitious intelligence had already transformed almost the whole of its local substance to breed plants and animals which would be at home on the new world, and then to build human bodies, and to light their minds with Kas from afar.
Watson, Ian - Black Current 01 Page 18
