The Man Who Talled Tales: Collected Short Stories of R.A. Lafferty

by R. A. Lafferty

  I fair the scum-wort that before was foul,

  And close the circles of our cyclic day:

  The Eco-log and eke the sarco-phay.

  —Scorner Number 33

  “What is a girl like you doing in a nice place like this?” he asked her. “Let me take you out of this and back where you belong.”

  “Back to Sewer Nine?” she mocked (these were old jibes or jokes). “But I really come from Sewer Nine,” she said. “I was raised there.”

  Her name was Circle Shannon and she was a nice roundish young woman. That was the impression she always gave Roger Meta, nice, roundish and twinkling. And perhaps the impression he gave her was of unhurried strength, easy bulk and ghost-shine.

  They had never seen each other by sunlight. They had never touched each other except by accident. They both worked in the covered sewers, traveling those underground pools and streams and sometimes floods in their flat-bottomed boats that could go nearly anywhere. What light got into that under-city world was accidental; and yet there was light. It was at least as strong as good starlight. They were workers in Sewer Seven. The boats of both of them had a phosphorescent shine on them, dim, green, underground and underwater fire.

  Roger Meta was scooping muck from the bottom of the sewer with a muck-scoop or muck-dredge. It was skilled labor. One broke up the new-formed muck-ridges that were not of a pattern, and sometimes one deposited muck on the old-pattern ridges that had been breached. The deep ridges were intended to give a rippling baffle effect to the waters, to turn the waters over.

  The muck-scoop had a hinged handle, for the waters of the sewer were twice as deep as the roof was high. Roger piled the muck in the fore-end of his muck-barge; and Circle Shannon came and picked stars out of it as they talked sparingly. Circle was a snail-picker and slug-picker, and these slimy creatures shined like faint stars where they were imbedded in the surface of the resurrected muck.

  Circle also plucked snails and slugs from the walls and ceilings of Sewer Seven, from the floating scum islands of the sewer flow; from the deeper water of it also, for she could sense the location of the small creatures variously. And while she took certain large snails and slugs (knowing exactly which were ready to take) she left other smaller seedling snails (from Sewer Five); and here in Sewer Seven they would always grow and scavenge well. She had now perhaps five hundredweight of snails and slugs gathered, half the safe lading of the boat.

  “Grendel is in Sewer Seven this night, Roger,” she said. “Beware of him.”

  “You do not know where Grendel is,” Roger Meta answered softly. “Nobody ever knows where he is. If one knew, that one might avoid him a little.”

  “All girls and women know when he is near,” Circle insisted. “We have the scent and the sense of him always. I tell you that he is in this very sewer now, and quite near.”

  “Grendel has nothing to do with girls and women,” Roger stated. “He is male forever, and he combats and devours only males. You have enmity against another creature. We have enmity against Grendel.”

  “Be you warned, man,” Circle said again, “he is quite near. But I do not know whether he devours tonight.”

  So they worked away in their boats quite near to each other, Circle Shannon who was a nice roundish young woman, and Roger Meta who was a young man of easy bulk and ghost-shine. This was at night in one of the closed sewers under the town of Kyklopolis.

  This Grendel of whom they had spoken with a trace of fear was a sewer monster. He was a water-monster beyond description, and he may have been the last of his race. He had the jaws of a giant Crocodile (this is all hearsay; nobody has seen him clearly and lived to tell about it). He had the gullet of Behemoth himself so that he could swallow a man whole. He had a human head and face and eyes, except for the great jaws below and the horrible mark above. His great arms were longer than a barge-boat, more powerful than a power-dredge, sometimes jointed like those of a man, sometimes writhing like the tentacles of an octopus or a kraken. There is a story that in another country and another time (the low middle ages) a hero tore one of the arms off Grendel. Do not believe it. The hero tore one joint of one finger off, no more.

  Grendel loved foul water: it was his grazing and his home. For this reason he resented having the water cleansed. For this and other reasons he devoured male humans, especially those of the sewer families. Or a young boy in his bed above might hear a call in his sleep and come and tumble down one of the access holes and into the calling jaws. A youth might go beyond where he was supposed to go and lean too far out of his barge and be taken. A full man, in his strength might be gulped alive and whole even when most warned and wary. The Scorner himself, when his year was finished, when he had ruled with reason and with intuitive unreason, when he had broken at last and set up his howling clamor, would most often rush and cast himself into the sewer at its foulest place. And there Grendel would have him and eat him alive. Grendel particularly loved the yearly Scorner.

  Well, why did not the men of Kyklopolis get together in great numbers with many boats and torches and weapons and hunt out and kill this Grendel? Should such a peril be allowed to live? But this is to ignore who Grendel really was, to forget of what race he was the last surviving member. For Grendel, who had once been completely human, was of the race of Cain. Moreover, Grendel was not only the descendant but also the murderer of the murderous Cain. He had disregarded the Mark of Cain and had killed its bearer. Then the Mark of Cain was transferred to Grendel himself. It was prohibited to kill him; it was prohibited by God to kill him.

  The sewers of Kyklopolis were full of ghosts and ghost stories, and perhaps the starkest of them was Grendel. There is no denying that Grendel had his ghostly elements, just as he had his human and monstrous and fishy and devilish elements.

  “It is told to me, Roger Meta, that you are nephew or stepson or somehow heir of John Legacy, he who is next person to die in our town,” Circle Shannon was saying as she brought her boat nearer to that of Roger. “This is told to me but you did not tell it to me. Who did you tell it to?” “I have told it to nobody at all,” Roger said. “I haven't enough expectation to tell it to anyone, to presume on anyone with such slim hopes.”

  “Tell it to me, Roger Meta,” Circle said, “and I may be able to supply such additional expectation and hope as is needed. He had the name of John Laketurner. His name has been changed legally to John Legacy, which means that he is the next to die. And you are somehow his heir. I supply the hope. Should I be a hopeless and empty woman forever?”

  And Circle touched this Roger gently on the arm; gently but meaningfully. It was the first time they had ever touched except by accident.

  “There are four of us who are equally heirs,” Roger explained. “These four are myself, Charley Goodfish, Harker Skybroom and Jaspers Rerun. The predictions, the rimes, the cryptic remarks of Scorner himself do not indicate which of us has the advantage. After all, my foster uncle John Laketurner received the name of John Legacy only two days ago. Even after that it is not sure that he is the next to die. Often fate falls one way when it has been notched and chopped to fall another. It is said that one of us four will indeed receive the belly or birth blessing for his companion from the dying uncle, that another of us four will be the next Scorner, that still another of us (in addition to Scorner) will be killed by Grendel, and that the fourth one of us will go as yearly pilgrim to country side and world. I will not be as I am when another season has gone, but I haven't high hope of legacy.”

  “Carol Bluesnail is declared companion of Charley Goodfish already,” Circle said. “Twicechild Newleaf is declared companion of Harker Skybroom. Velma Green is declared companion of Jaspers Rerun. Now I, Circle Shannon, become declared companion of you, Roger Meta. I repeat: I do not wish to remain a hopeless and empty woman forever. Do you understand me?”

  “I understand you,” Roger Meta said, and he rubbed the palm of his hand on her cheek. It was the first time he had ever touched her.

  That
is the way it was in Kyklopolis. The count was kept constant. This was rigidly enforced by the Scorner, who had to be such a hard man that in one year he would break to pieces, being unable to bend. But if the count should drop by one or more then things could be put in motion to restore it to where it had been. If John Legacy should die soon (how could he not die soon since he had been named for it?) then it could be arranged for someone to take his place.

  The selection of the man to be Scorner was a curious business. Following the yearly break-up and death of the old Scorner, all the people of the town would consider who the next Scorner should be. They would look; and after a bit they would all be looking at the same man. He might protest, he might try to refuse, but he would know himself to be the man. And always he would serve his term.

  The Scorner was the autocrat, the absolute ruler of the town for his life in office. No other town had quite the same arrangement. To keep the town constant and continuing it was necessary that the Scorner be very stem, that he scorn all normal human sentiment. To keep the count constant required that the Scorner have rights of life and death over the inhabitants. It required also that he have rights over the air and the water, over the muck-spreading, over the land crops and the grazing, over the euglena and other algae, over all land and water plants and animals and fish, over the river and its divergencies.

  As to the river and its related waters, there were two theories. One was that it was the purpose of the town of Kyklopolis to purify the river, to pass it on clearer and more fishful than it found it; that it was for this reason that Kyklopolis existed at that river junction.

  The other theory was that the river, even in its putridity, was meant to serve the town and its people, that all rivers were meant to serve towns and peoples. The same for the air: it was meant to nourish even by its noxiousness.

  Only the Scorner in office held instinctively the position that these two purposes were the same, that Kyklopolis was rightly named (the Circle City, the Cycle City, the Wheel City); and that if there were enough such towns and cities in the world, the world would be redressed.

  The redressing of the world had to be very slow, however: too much haste could tip it even further out of balance. It was for this reason that the aid given by Kyklopolis to the rest of the world was not massive. It consisted, in fact, of one pilgrim a year sent out into the world to carry the message of balance and purification. How effective was the work of the pilgrims wasn't known. No one of the yearly pilgrims had ever been heard from again after his departure.

  “How many are the ghosts tonight!” Circle Shannon cried out, “and how glowing and lowering! I believe that they will have a party.”

  “I believe that we will have a party also,” Roger Meta called, and he poled his boat nearer to that of Circle. “A snail told me so, a fish told me so,” he said. “I believe that the other three heirs of John Legacy will come down to have a party with us just when it begins to dawn above and their night's work is over with. And I believe that they will bring with them their three declared companions.”

  “Why then we will have our party along with that of the ghosts,” Circle said, accepting it easily and completely that the six visitors really would come down. “And there is a great fish to serve for our party. It's unusual that there be any fish so large as he before the time of transmutation.”

  She speared the big fish with a fish spear. She loaded it, flopping and hopping, into her snail-boat. And they brought their two boats to the shelf of rock and muck where the ghosts were gathering.

  The sewer ghosts were made mostly of methane gas. So then there was nothing to them but glowing swamp gas? Hold there, hold! There was much more to them. Of what are you mostly made yourself? And is there no more to you than that?

  Each of the dimly glowing hovering gas ghosts had his own person and personality. They could not communicate directly with human persons in words. The only sound they made was like the gurgling of water. It may indeed have been the near gurgling of water; it may have been that the ghosts were really soundless. We don't think so. The gurgling was always to be heard in the presence of the ghosts; it was often but not always to be heard in their absence.

  There was real acquaintance and friendship between the sewer ghosts and the sewer workers. They knew each others' names, they were good company. Often it would have been lonesome, for ghost or for person, had it not been for the company of the other.

  A hatch cover was raised in the ceiling of Sewer Seven. It showed a pale circle of pre-morning light and one last fading star. Then persons came through the hatch hole and down the old iron ladder to the shelf of rock and muck. Six persons: Roger Meta had not met all of them before; Circle Shannon had not met any of them: but both knew the names and persons of all six, just as they knew the names and persons of the sewer ghosts. There were three unhurried strong young men from above with the day-shine on them: Charley Goodfish, Harker Skybroom, Jaspers Rerun. There were three sparkling and roundish young women: Carol Bluesnail, Twicechild Newleaf, Velma Green.

  “I am blind, I am blind,” Twicechild cried. “One does not see by the light here; it is less than starlight. Here we must sense each other by other senses than sight. Harker, my declared companion and man, I have never sensed you so before.”

  “Circle Shannon and myself have never seen each other by sunlight,” Roger Meta was saying. “We have been declared companions for less than one hour: we touched each other for the first time less than an hour ago. It may be that we will see each other by sunlight during the coming day.”

  “Yes, you will go up when we go up, as soon as the party is over,” Charley Goodfish told them. “There will be a party, will there not? Carol Bluesnail had the intuition that there would be a party and she told the other five of us that we were called to come with her to it. It would be embarrassing if she were mistaken and there was no party intended.”

  “There will be a party,” Circle said pleasantly. “A providential fish appeared and I captured it for the party. And these globs of almost-light that you see here are our friends the sewer ghosts. They eat nothing at all, but they are good company.”

  “I thought that you were only sewer legends,” Twicechild Newleaf said to the tallest and most garish of the ghosts. “I had no idea that you were real, but I have not been in the sewers before, or not since I was a child.”

  The tallest and most garish of the methane ghosts bowed in courtly fashion and gurgled like water. He did not use words, but he did communicate to Twicechild that he and the other ghosts were indeed real, that they were friendly, that they regarded themselves as mentors and guardians of the humans who labored in the sewers.

  Carol Bluesnail had brought several large onions. Really, there is no having a party without onions, and the sewer workers in particular appreciate onions. Twicechild Newleaf had brought several small dressed birds (she was a fowler by profession). Velma Green had goat cheese. Charley Goodfish had a crock of honey wine. Harker had brought cloud-clover, those small edible seedlike particles that are precipitated out by the sky-sweeps and must be gathered from balloon, they being too light ever to fall to earth in quantity. Jaspers Rerun had brought euglena bread: this is made from that peculiar algae where it is taken from the river below the sewers and after the yearly mutation. And Roger Meta had a clay jug of turtle meat that had been preserved in its own fat since last year's burgeoning period.

  Charley Goodfish, the beekeeper, the honey and wax man, produced and lit and set a wax candle. Above this he put a cupped pan on a little support; and into the cupped pan he placed pieces of the providential fish that Circle Shannon had taken and was now cutting up.

  “Is there any further fuel?” Charley Goodfish asked. “What do the people in sewers do about fuel and burning? Above land these are very touchy subjects.”

  “Our friends, the sewer ghosts,” Circle said, introducing them in one of their functions. The methane-gas ghosts came one after another and passed through the candle flame, turning it into
a small but roaring fire. The providential fish was quickly cook-fried in the cupped pan, and no one of the sewer ghosts was greatly diminished by his contribution. There was plenty of methane gas in the sewers at all times and the ghosts could always assimilate it to themselves in whatever quantity was needed.

  It was a good party then with eating and drinking and some singing. The song had the curious quality of echoing and re-echoing through that whole watery underground. It was absorbed by every surface and depth there, and it would be given back gradually. Weeks later, little wisps of that song would be given back by the slimy walls and overheads, by the thickish waters, by the scum-wort or euglena algae (especially in its mutation time), even by the sewer ghosts, who retained scraps of old song to mix later with their water-gurgling sound.

  The eight young human persons became very close in their emotions. They promised and pledged various things, in particular that no one of them would take unfair advantage in obtaining the belly blessing or birth blessing from that dying man named John Legacy. They agreed that the eight of them would go together that very day (it was daytime now in the world above) to John Legacy and see if the business of the blessing could be settled quickly. Then they touched and kissed each other, and made an eight-way friendship forever.

  The six of them went up the iron ladder and through the hatchway to morning light. And Circle Shannon and Roger Meta poled and floated their boats to that place where Sewer Seven reached the loading banks. There they could discharge the snails and slugs and muck to the morning workers who distributed such. They had never gone together before. They were right on the edge of daylight now, and they had never seen each other by daylight.

  Two great hands, one on each side, came up out of the black-green water and seized the muck-boat of Roger Meta by the very gunwales. Each of the hands was as wide as the boat was long, twice as wide as a man's height. One joint of one finger of one hand was missing, had been missing for fifteen hundred years. There were no other hands anywhere like these. They were the hands of the monster Grendel.