I pulled myself upright and walked unsteadily across the boat to right the bats’ cage, and then let them out. They huddled together at the foot of the windtree, snatching with their bony hands at the scraps of food that the rocking of the boat had strewn across the floor.
I could see the men in the water, a tree of darkness, with its roots made of stone, its trunk of rope, and its branches of human flesh. But their lungs had filled up, and the tree was slowly collapsing to the bottom. Soon the carrion fish would come and gnaw the meat from their bones.
Ha! That would teach them to try and trick me! That would teach them not to care, not even one little bit, about how another person felt!
But then again, now that they were dead, what purpose did I still have? Without my store of hate, there was nothing left to distract me from that cold cold stone inside me, pressing against my lungs and my heart, nothing to stop me seeing Greenstone in my head, as he fell and fell toward the fire.
“How do I know he’s dead, though?” I muttered.
Why should I believe Snowleopard, who had lied to me about everything else? And why would Chief Dixon have told an ordinary ringman about his plans?
My heart lifted. It was too early to grieve! Greenstone was alive and breathing still, and I could still try and help him! I was the Ringwearer, after all. I had the ring. I could go back to New Earth and use its power.
I rolled up the windcatcher, stepped down into the back end of the left-hand sister-boat, and began to dig in the water. Of course the boat started to pull sharply round to the right almost at once, and I had to stop digging so I could pull it back to the left. As soon as it was straight, I carried on paddling, but I could only get three digs in at most before the boat swung round and I had to stop again to get it straight.
I carried on like that for a little while—three digs, steer; three digs, steer—but then I realized I was still moving backward. Even without the windcatcher, the wind was pushing the boat faster back toward the Deep Darkness than my paddle could take it forward. I could even see the crumpled tree of dead men ahead of me, lying in a dark heap at the bottom of the bright bright water.
“Make the boat lighter,” I muttered.
I dragged the two remaining bags of greenstone to the back and pushed them over, throwing the bags of badjuice after them.
The boat was swinging round now, so I straightened it with the paddle, faced it back toward New Earth, and dug and dug as hard as I could. But when I stopped to steer, the dead men were not only still ahead of me, but further ahead than they had been before. Throwing the stones and badjuice off hadn’t helped, I could see now. It had made the boat easier for the wind to push, as much as it had made it easier for me, and the wind was just too strong for one person to be able to force the boat back against it. What else could I do? I dug and dug. But even though I was panting with the effort when I stopped to steer, the dark lump under the water had moved still further ahead of me. Never mind getting back to New Earth; I couldn’t even get back to the place where I’d drowned my dad’s three friends. Soon, they were so far ahead of me that I couldn’t see them at all.
I had no plan left. The boat spun slowly round and round, drifting all the while in the direction of Deep Darkness, between shining water and shining stars, each singing its silent song, beautiful and empty and meaningless.
But then I heard a sound, faintly faintly, carried on the wind.
Paaaaaaaaaaarp! Paaaaaaaaaaarp! Paaaaaaaaaaarp!
There was a silence for a moment, and then an answer came from further away in another direction. It was the sound of metal horns, the sound of purpose, the sound of human minds, pushing out greedily into the world. There were boats out on the Pool, faster boats than mine, searching for the whisperer who’d stolen Gela’s ring.
Paaaaaaaaaaarp! Paaaaaaaaaaarp! Paaaaaaaaaaarp!
I climbed up onto the floor again and peered out over the shining water, but I could see nothing at all but the smoothly glowing surface, pink and green, stretching away in every direction. Those other boats were still beyond World’s Edge, but at any moment one of them could appear above it and there I’d be: a spot of shadow under the black black sky, in a huge, bright circle of shining water. And then it would be too late. On my own I couldn’t possibly outrun a big boat with four five men paddling on either side of it.
I untied the windcatcher and tugged it out straight, then picked up the steerpole and pulled the boat round to face out toward Deep Darkness. All I could hope for was to reach it before I was seen.
Lucy Johnson
“I’m sorry about what happened,” Dixon said as we sat by ourselves in the Writingcave of the Headmanhouse. “I’m sorry I lost my temper. I’m sorry I hit you. I only did it because you were showing me up in front of my men. But now, please, will you do what I ask of you, for your own sake as well as mine?”
I laughed. “You want me to play the Ringwearer without a ring?”
“We’re still looking for it. We’ve got nineteen boats out on the water.”
“Nineteen boats to search whole of Worldpool. Well, that should be easy!”
“If we don’t find it on Pool, we’ll fetch it back from Old Ground.”
“Oh, yes? Do you even know where the fishing girl comes from?”
I looked over at the map painted on the wall. I could see New Earth. I could see tiny Middlehill. I could see Old Ground, with Veeklehouse and Brown River and Circle Valley. I could even see the ground behind Snowy Dark, where it’s said the followers of Tina Spiketree made their home. But there was no sign of the little waterhill where the fishing girl’s people lived.
“Teacher Michael says he tried many times to wheedle the secret out of her, but the little slinker would never tell. We’ll find it, though, don’t you worry, and we’ll find the ring as well. But in meantime we must show the small people that we have a new Headman and a new Ringwearer. You can wear another metal ring, until the old one’s found again. It’s only a ring, after all.”
“Oh, come on, Dixon! Every metaldigger knows, every flowergatherer, every slowhead stonebreaker, that the metal of Gela’s ring is yellow and white. No one’s going to be fooled by a bit of redmetal.”
“They will if you don’t go close to them, and don’t offer the ring to kiss.”
“What kind of Ringwearer will I be if I can never let anyone near the ring?”
“We’ll find ways round it.”
Ways round it! If the fool had only taken the ring off the girl’s finger here in the Headmanhouse, as any sensible person would have done, none of this would have happened! But this is where we were, and what choice did I have?
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Oh, thank you, Lucy, my darling, thank you.”
I’d never seen him so grateful. He actually got down on his knees at my feet and kissed my hands.
“We will get it back,” he repeated.
“You’d better. I do not want people in the future to tell stories about Lucy the fake Ringwearer.”
He stood up again, frowning. I could see he was making plans, and that I’d had all the kneeling and hand-kissing I was going to get.
“You’re not the fake Ringwearer, Lucy. She was. And that’s what you need to tell people. Tell them she was from the Davidfolk. Tell them she was a whisperer. Tell them . . .” He cast about in his mind for yet worse things to say about the fishing girl. “Tell them she might have pretended to be like them, but really she cared so little about their lives that if she had her way, she would have taken even the bats from them, and made them do the bats’ work.” He began to pace about. “We could actually turn what’s happened to our advantage, you know,” he said. “Tell them the truth about the ring, tell them that she stole it and took it back across the water to the Davidfolk. Then everyone in New Earth would agree that we needed to cross the Pool and take back Old Ground. Think about that, Lucy; I could be the Headman who brought Old Ground back to Gela and President and John, and you could be the first Ringwear
er to take the ring to Veeklehouse and Circle Valley.”
“So . . . no redmetal ring, then?”
“No, this is a better plan: an empty hand. Like Gela’s own hand was empty when she lost the ring. The Mother of Eden has lost the ring again, thanks to the wickedness of the Davidfolk, but we, your true and loving children, will turn all Eden upside down until we get it back for you.”
Yes, that was better, I thought. I’d have hated playing the Ringwearer with a fake ring, but a Ringwearer with no ring at all, a Ringwearer who’d had something dear and precious stolen from her—that was a part I knew well.
Starlight Brooking
Paaaaaarp! Paaaaaarp! Paaaaaarp!
They were far far away still, a good distance back beyond World’s Edge and some distance over alpway as well, but there was more than one of them, and they were hunting together, letting one another know where they were, like we did on Grounds when we went out after a spearfish. Again and again I stood up and searched the water behind me, but there was really no purpose to it, because even if I did see them there was nowhere I could hide on the smooth, bright water, and no way of going any faster. All I could do now was make sure the boat was steady and the windcatcher bulging straight out in front, and hope to reach the Darkness before they found me.
I did that for the length of a waking, and then a waking after that.
I’d sunk down into a kind of half sleep when the horns suddenly blew again, much nearer than before. I was nearing the edge of the bright water. In fact, I could actually make out Deep Darkness ahead of me, for the brightness no longer ended in a long straight line, but met an uneven strip of blackness, fringed with breaking waves, that came in closer in some places than others. Dreading what I’d find, I stood up and looked back, and there it was: a dark shadow in the distance, moving over the pink-green glow of the watertrees. They’d found me.
What should I do? The nearest tongue of dark water was over to my left, but if I turned too far that way, I’d lose the wind. On the other hand, if I went straight ahead, the dark water was still some distance away, hardly any nearer than the boat behind.
The horn blew again, and then I heard faintly faintly the sound of a man’s voice shouting across the water. A second boat had appeared behind it from beyond World’s Edge, and its horns were calling out as well:
Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
I decided to trade a little speed for the sake of a shorter distance to the shelter of darkness, and I turned a bit to the left: not so far as to lose the wind completely, but enough to make the catcher flap against its tree.
Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
The horns seemed to jeer at me as the two boats drew closer. I could make out a man now, standing at the front of the first one, peering toward me across the water. He was wearing a red wrap and I knew he must be a chief, someone I must have met and spoken to, someone who would have knelt and kissed the ring on my hand.
Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
I made myself look forward again to check the windcatcher and the boat’s direction. It was hard hard to sit still when I was being chased, hard to hold the steerpole steady and not to turn one way or the other just for the sake of something to do.
“Turn round!” called the chief on the boat behind me. “You can’t get away!”
His boat was closing on me, faster even than I’d feared it would, and the other boat was coming up behind it.
“I can get away,” I muttered. “I can.”
But I knew that even if I reached Deep Darkness first, that still wasn’t going to be enough, because they’d come after me and would have firecages to help them see. Somehow I had to hide myself in the darkness, place myself in a part of it they wouldn’t guess I’d go.
“Turn round, fishing girl, turn round!”
There were still some empty juicebags lying on the floor, and I had an idea. It wasn’t much of an idea, but the desire to do something became too much to resist. I left the steerpole and ran forward to toss the bags into the water to left and right.
“There’s your bloody ring!” I shouted back as loudly as I could. “You’d better get it before it sinks!”
Then I ran back again to the steerpole to bring the boat back onto the line I’d chosen.
I was almost at the edge of the bright water when the other boats reached the juicebags. But, whether because they hadn’t heard me or because they hadn’t believed me, they didn’t slow down the smallest bit or turn away even slightly from their line, the ringmen down either side just digging steadily forward through the water, as, far below me, the bottom of Worldpool dropped away like an underwater cliff and my boat bumped and tossed through rough waves and on into Deep Darkness.
Greenstone Johnson
So I’ve walked for the last time, I’ve slept for the last time, I’ve spoken for the last time. I will never touch another person, or see another place but this, and no one will ever know the thoughts I’m having now. But I am still thinking, I’m still alive, my body still healthy and strong. And I can still see this place. I can still hear the booming roar. I can still make out the voice of Teacher Michael as he reads out the many reasons why I’m bad.
“. . . the hat that didn’t belong to him . . . listened knowingly to . . . ignored the advice of . . . gave the ring to . . .”
There’s a ringman standing right in front of me. A metal mask covers the top part of his face, but his long gray beard sticks down beneath it, and I can see that it’s streaked with white. He’s probably a grandfather many times over, and a great grandfather, too.
“Father,” he says, “some people prefer to be pushed, but others like to jump for themselves.”
No one but me can hear him or see his lips move. Unless he chooses to tell them, no one will ever know he spoke to me. His voice is kind, respectful. I imagine him with his little great grandchildren, smiling in his beard as he watches them running round him.
“Do you want to jump, Father?”
I nod my head, and I can see his whole body relax.
“Thank you, Father. I wouldn’t have liked being the one that did for you.”
Behind him, the Head Teacher is still telling the little crowd why I must die. Tiny tiny they are, with the great clouds of steam above them in the huge, bright cave: just little lost creatures from Earth, as Starlight used to say, hiding away in a hole in the ground and telling themselves that it’s the whole world, and that they are important and big.
The ringman is speaking to me again, quickly quickly because there’s so little time.
“The Head Teacher will finish soon, Father, and then it’ll be time, but I thought you’d like to know that the mother escaped from us, and so did her helper Quietstream. We think those Old Ground men have taken them over the water. Quietstream is a friend of mine; we come from the same cluster. We had to take her mother and daughters in for questioning, but they’ve told us nothing new. We think Quietstream got the story from a crazy old woman called Sue who used to live in our cluster—she was sent here to the Rock long ago—and we think she told no one except the mother herself.”
The Head Teacher has turned round to look at me as he says his final words, shaking his head sadly, like he is disappointed in me and had thought I could do better. Beyond him, in front of the crowd, stands tall Dixon, with his housewoman beside him: Lucy, my proud, sad, lonely cousin.
It’s strange strange. In two seconds I will jump, and there’ll be terror first, and then, for a few seconds, hideous pain. And then nothingness. But that’s still on the other side of a kind of wall. Right now I feel quite happy and at peace.
Starlight Brooking
I was in Deep Darkness. I could see the chief’s boat behind me, as clearly as ever out there in the bright water, and I knew that he’d still be able to see my pale windcatcher in the glow from the water behind me, but that soon even that light would be gone.
So what now? Should I turn in the direction of the wind and go faster? It was tempting, but if the c
hief expected that of me, then the extra speed would be of no use at all. Should I perhaps continue the line I was on, to the left and rockway of the wind, and hope they’d wrongly guess that I’d turn toward the wind? Or perhaps I should do the thing that would surely seem to them least likely: Turn right and alpway across the wind?
There was no way to know for sure. There were only those three choices, and shades in between them. The men on the other boats knew that as well as I did.
I glanced at my windcatcher, which I could still faintly see in the last of the light from the bright water, and made up my mind. I turned toward the direction of the wind, saw the catcher fill up, and felt myself pulled forward. After that I held the steerpole steady, watching the windcatcher and waiting until the light was so dim I could only just barely make it out. Then I turned right and alpway.
I looked back at the first boat as it came bumping through the strip of waves between the bright water and Deep Darkness. The last time they’d been able to see me, I would have been turning alpway of the wind, and I’d purposely left that turn to the last possible moment in the hope they’d decide I’d been trying to make them think I’d follow the wind, and had only snuck off alpway when I believed I was out of their sight.
Everything depended on their thinking that. Otherwise they could reach me in minutes. I watched the first boat. The windcatcher, the men, and a patch of water around them were all lit up by the orange glow from its firecage. And . . . and, yes—yes!—it was turning alpway!
I watched the second boat and saw it continue straight ahead, then I turned sharply left, back across the wind again, and as far rockway as I could go without losing the wind completely. I would count out five hundred seconds, I told myself, and then, if the firecages still weren’t coming after me, I would turn blueway and let the wind take me straight out across the Pool.
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