The Luck of Brin's Five

by Wilder, Cherry;

  And each time the twirlers echoed his name, “Petsalee!”

  “I am returned from the grip of the Enemy!”

  “I am returned from the river depths!”

  “I am returned from the black barge of death!”

  “I am returned from the Strangler!”

  “I was spared, and my spirit-warriors were taken!”

  “I was spared to do the work of evil!”

  “I was spared to betray Eenath!”

  “I was spared to watch by the river!”

  The beat had quickened, and the heels of the twirlers were thudding upon the earth; in the shadow we quivered like a taut thread, knowing too well the meaning of this chant.

  “Avert!” shrieked Petsalee, raising his staff. “Avert the evil might of the Strangler!”

  “I am purged by the twirlers’ fire!”

  “I am freed by the power of Eenath!”

  “I declare the truth to the land of Torin . . .”

  Brin turned us all away, and we went through the crowd pursued by the rhythmical shrieks of the twirlers, who spun in ecstasy and fell and rose again. The message they were chanting rang in our ears as we made for the South Wharf.

  “A spirit-warrior fell down!”

  “A noble spirit has come upon Torin!”

  “A hero has come, a hero who flies like a bird!”

  “A hero is here among us . . .”

  There was a large keel boat waiting, and it bore our Cullin banner from the Bird Clan at its masthead. The captain and two crew members, all out of Otolor, bowed humbly, and we saw the reason: the Bird Clan winnings were safely stowed aboard. The captain handed us a message skein from Fer Utovangan, bidding us a safe journey in Blacklock’s name and assigning us a lodging, the house of a wig-maker in Rintoul. We trooped aboard and began to make ourselves comfortable with our own furnishings, for the handcart had also arrived. It made me begin to understand what it might be like to be rich: work was done for you. Food had been laden and even flowers in a water frame.

  We were about to cast off when a voice shouted, “Hold! Hold please, I pray you in the winds’ name!”

  The sailors stood still. What now? I asked and prayed for nothing more to happen. A plump figure in a townee robe was struggling along the wharf with a small wicker travelling basket.

  “What do you want?” called Brin.

  “Excellence . . . Noble escort . . .” At last I saw who it was.

  “Garl Brinroyan . . . take me with you. I have striven at the Bird Clan every spring for ten years and never served a winner till now. I am discreet and handy and would rather serve a . . . a spirit-warrior than go back to my cross-cousin’s woodwork shop . . .”

  Diver looked at Brin, who smiled, and he said, “Come aboard, good Ablo.”

  So Ablo scrambled aboard, and the boat was cast off. We set sail into the New Year with a light northeast wind, and overhead a silvery bank of cloud, like fish scales, drifted across the sky hiding the light of Esder.

  VIII

  Every journey on the river is different, as I had learned, and our circumstances had changed. We were rich, we had friends, we even had servants. Slowly, slowly it came to Brin’s Five that we did not ever need to weave again; we could, as the Maker of Engines had suggested, take land or become townees in some place on the Troon. For three days the adults enjoyed the sun of the New Year, then they could not refrain from putting up the largest of our looms as before, and Gwin got out her lace frames. But the spark of a new life had settled behind the eyes of the Harper, for one. How would it be, he asked now and then, if the Family had a bird farm, with a tent or a fixed house or both, whatever they pleased? How would it be if Mamor had a bird-boat to carry the birds from the farm, and the wild birds he might trap in the eastern hunting grounds, near Rintoul? Old Gwin was scornful.

  “How would it be if wool-deer grew wings?” she said.

  She was still mourning the loss of our spinners. They had gone with the Gulgarvor; a rack had fallen across their basket when Mamor was subdued in the tent; some had died, some had run off. Only Momo, the largest, had had the sense to crawl up the tree, and Old Gwin had coaxed her down again and had her alone in a cage beside her on the deck. Ablo assured Gwin that good spinners were to be found in Linlor, but she would not believe him.

  The mat-loom did not sound at all on this journey; not from my usual laziness but because I was sick. Perhaps it had a little to do with the motion of the keel boat, which was greater than that of the barge, or perhaps it was some town fever from Otolor. At any rate I dragged myself miserably from the deck to the hold, so as not to miss anything, but by the fourth or fifth day I was flat on the box-bed in the hold, burning and shivering. I gazed through a small window over the Troon, and the members of the Family took turns sitting by me. I had time to think, too much time, and I believed that my sickness was a sickness of the mind as well as the body; it was born of excitement and violence. I first dreamed here of Jebbal’s flying machine twisting to earth and of the dark faces of the Gulgarvor.

  Up above me, on deck, life went on. Tomar fell overboard and was rescued by Mamor, but not before the little wretch had begun to swim. Every day Mamor set Tomar and Narneen swimming round the boat for practice, to save himself another wetting. Diver practiced his speech and his woven script and taught Harper Roy the “Song of the Young Harper Fallen in Battle,” which, in Moruian, became a great favorite in the Harper’s song sack, known far and wide.

  I can lay out, on paper, three versions of this same song: the true words, the sense of it or paraphrase that Diver told the Harper, and the words written into Moruian. I do not know that the Harper’s listeners will ever have the real sense of this strange, sweet, violent song. A lone harper, a young male, setting out for war deliberately, is something that belongs far in our warlike past, in the time of the Torlogans and the clan wars. And the loneliness of it . . . “one faithful sword” and so on. But the beauty sings through very well; who could chose between “wild harp” and “turu geer” or “rorogaban torin-na” and “land of song”? One line, of course, caused great difficulty; it was impossible for the Harper to sing anything resembling, “His father’s sword he has girded on” and when Diver suggested, “His mother’s sword,” the Harper jibbed at that too. So the Young Harper went into battle “with weapons borrowed from his Family,” solving the problems of decency and fire-metal-magic.

  Brin and Narneen sat by me one morning, and we spoke of Vel Ragan and Onnar, who were following us to Rintoul in their own sailboat. We were becalmed at the time and thought it must be the same with them. Narneen had a tale, half-understood, from Onnar, of Vel Ragan’s friend and former liege, who had been a great leader in the Fire-Town, then had been disgraced and dismissed from his work with the Town Five. Tsorl was his name, and he had gone not long before to Rintoul to study some strange new metal, which Vel Ragan guessed must be Diver’s ship. But Vel Ragan had no trust for the Elders and the Great Elder in particular, and what he had seen on the river and in Otolor made him fear for the safety of his friend Tsorl. I said this leader’s name to myself, after this, for he was called Tsorl-U-Tsorl or Tsorl Alone; he would have no family name at all and not even a nickname, which is valued among ordinary folk. It seemed to me a proud and brave title. Could I be Dorn-U-Dorn, ever?

  We had left behind the Pentroy lands, and from Otolor we had been sailing through the country of clan Wentroy. We came, with some work on the capstans, to Linlor wharf, and by now my sickness was lifting. I came up on deck and saw that Linlor was a sweet, well-swept town, smaller than Otolor but graceful and white, a foretaste perhaps of the townee districts in Rintoul. It lay in the midst of tamed lands and orchards on the west bank of the Troon, which was broad at this point.

  There was a tall fixed house not far from the town in fine gardens; it was the home of the Wentroy Elder, Guno Gunroyan, whose reputation for bad temper and cussedness was as great as her reputation for justice and fair-dealing. She was called “Guno Deg
,” which is difficult to translate, for it means Old Cross-Patch, but it is a term of grudging affection, almost a loving nickname.

  Ablo took Old Gwin into the town, the pair of them tottering a little on dry land, and found out a place to buy new spinners. We put on new clothes, made from our winnings, for the Harper and Brin had been busy with sewing; they had taken Diver’s measure, and he looked very fine. In fact our craft and our family brought inquiries from the Town Five. Brin had the Captain give it out that we were rich weavers from Otolor come to take up an inheritance in the delta. Every day hawkers and food-sellers and flower-sellers came down to the wharf offering us their wares, but old habits die hard and we shopped sparingly.

  A wind sprang up after two days, and we made haste to leave; but just at the moment we were about to cast off, Narneen, who had been sitting silent by the mast, ran to Brin.

  “Wait,” she said. “Please wait for Onnar and Vel Ragan. I know they are coming!”

  “Child, we need the wind!” said Mamor.

  “They have news! They have been trying to catch us for days! Wait . . . we must wait!”

  “You have been right before,” said Brin seriously. So she bade the captain moor the boat again, and we waited. It was no more than two hours when a sailboat hove in sight, far to the north, and came beating down upon the wind; Narneen clapped hands with relief.

  Through Diver’s glass we saw them, sailing expertly, with Vel Ragan at the tiller and Onnar handling the sail. I saw that sailing, in one’s own small boat, might be a great thing; I thought of Valdin and Thanar and hoped they still sailed in their boat on Salthaven. Vel Ragan came scudding up to the wharf and made haste to come aboard. There was something in his set face and fast limping gait that pierced me with fear the old fear of Tiath Gargan. He spoke quickly with Brin and Diver, then drew into a close discussion with all the adults. Narneen and I crept close and heard at last.

  The news was very bad. The members of the Gulgarvor had been held in the citadel at Otolor, heavily bound and under close guard. But one had a scrap of shell in its boot sole and managed to work on a single rope until it parted and freed another. Then, by lot apparently, or some other secret choice, three went free—the omor Meetal, Artho and Alloo—strangled all the rest of the Gulgarvor and strangled two guards and made off. No one knew where they were, but we all knew their purpose: to capture our Luck.

  Blacklock and Fer had already flown out of Otolor when this occurred, and the Town Watch, fearing Blacklock’s anger, might have hushed up the whole matter. But luckily some members of the Bird Clan escort were still doing guard duty and they made haste to tell Vel Ragan, so that he might warn Brin’s Five.

  Diver’s face had its old harsh look, which I had hoped not to see again. “Are we well ahead of them?” he asked.

  “So I trust,” said Vel Ragan. “We set out at once, the day after the escape and passed no boat on the Troon that might have carried them. All were local fishers, small and untroubled. Onnar probed their thoughts if she could.”

  “What about a glider or a flying machine?” asked Brin.

  “Hardly possible,” said the scribe. “Even if they could come by a glider, it would not take them all.”

  “What do you advise?” asked Diver.

  “Let us make what speed we can to Rintoul,” said Ragan. “They call it the city of peace. Weapons may not be worn and vassals in particular may not appear in arms. Also, there is one there who should know of your presence.”

  “Do you mean Nantgeeb?” asked Brin, for Vel Ragan was already familiar with our story.

  “That is impossible, if you will pardon me, Brin Brinroyan,” put in Ablo. “I have heard that the Maker of Engines and even Blacklock himself are as good as exiled from Rintoul.”

  “I did not mean Nantgeeb,” said Vel Ragan. “I will present you to Orn Margan Dohtroy, the Dohtroy Elder on the Council of Five. Margan, the Peacemaker, holds land in Tsagul and the west.”

  “Why should this Elder meet our Luck?” asked the Harper.

  “I think I know,” said Mamor. “Do you, Diver?”

  “Something to do with the Fire-Town?” asked Diver.

  “By no means,” said Vel Ragan, laughing, “but for your own protection, Garl Brinroyan. To show that you exist and that a clan member has set eyes on you!”

  “You are a useful friend indeed,” said Brin, “and we need you in the great city.”

  Vel Ragan sighed and said: “Any news of the air ship?”

  “A little,” said Diver. “We have it from a hawker that it lay over here at Linlor wharf for several days and met up with a small boat from Rintoul. But we cannot tell what this means. Could this be Nantgeeb?”

  “I think not!” Vel Ragan said excitedly. He cursed under his breath and began to speak, with some hesitation and shyness, of his former liege Tsorl-U-Tsorl, Deputy of the Fire-Town.

  “I believe Tsorl came in that small boat to Linlor to view the air ship. This is bad news . . . it means he saw the ship before its capture.”

  “Why are you anxious for the safety of your friend?” asked Brin.

  “It is a strange story,” said Vel Ragan, “and one that I cannot bear to tell. But Tsorl set out for Rintoul to serve the Great Elder by his superior knowledge of metals. He has not been seen by his friends since then.”

  “You have asked in Rintoul?” said Diver.

  “One friend, a Highness of Dohtroy, Tilje Paroyan, was no more than a few days after him, yet he could not be found. She was in Tiath Avran’s own house.”

  “Whew . . . I would rather keep out of that place!” exclaimed the Harper.

  “It is a dull place, so I hear,” said the scribe. “Tiath is not even his family head . . . Old Av still dodders about, and there are various high-bred old females . . . a tangle of the old threads.”

  “What is their Luck?” I chipped in to the conversation.

  “I can tell you that,” said Old Gwin. “It is the dwarf Urnat, that was born of a poor Five on Gurth Mountain, west of Hingstull.”

  “Clan gossip!” said Mamor. “Vel Ragan, what do you fear for your friend the Deputy?”

  “I do not know,” said Vel Ragan, “but the Strangler’s hand is in it. Tsorl hoped always for more freedom for the Fire-Town, but this is a dream.”

  Then the talk went another way, but I sat by Vel Ragan and Onnar and said to them, “Tsorl-U-Tsorl. . . . That is a very proud name.”

  “The Deputy is a proud man,” said Onnar.

  Vel Ragan laid a hand on the hand of his Witness. “I last heard his voice from Onnar,” he said, “when she brought a certain message. I pray we find him again.”

  Then we all took advantage of the wind and sailed straight on, through the Wentroy lands, with Vel and Onnar out-running our keel boat. We lay over sometimes, and our friends came aboard and Vel Ragan instructed Diver in all sorts of practical matters: the government in Rintoul, the Council of One Hundred, the City Council, the inner Council of the Five Elders, and their laws and formalities. He told old tales of the Fire-Town and the last clan war and the more distant history of Torin.

  We kept up our discreet inquiries about the barge carrying the air ship, with the help of the captain and the crew who knew the river. They knew something of our business, and Diver’s identity was an open secret, as it had become at the Bird Clan. Ablo had been taken into our counsel, and he was the one who finally made the discovery. We lay over at a small hamlet on the eastern bank, close to the rich delta lands, and he went to buy flowers. He came panting back with a great load of yellow twin-suns and a strange story. A barge had moored at this place, Pelle, and the crew were taken in the night with sleeping sickness.

  At the same time, there were comings and goings of strangers up the tiny stream, the Pel, that flows into the Troon at this point. A net and hoist were seen, said to be of metal, and a tall personage supervising the operation; the farmers in the village had been paid to see nothing. The crew on the barge and certain passengers woke cursing
after a sleep of a whole day and made haste towards Rintoul. This told us enough: Nantgeeb had stolen the air ship at this point, by the use of mind powers or simple sleeping herbs. If Tsorl-U-Tsorl were on the barge examining the ship, then he slept with the rest. Perhaps the anger of the Great Elder had been vented on those who lost his prize.

  Diver called to us one day, about two hours before the setting of Esder, and we found him standing in the bow with the captain. The land around us was particularly fine, with huge river meadows of reeds, where the water-fowl are bred. Not far away the Troon divided and divided again, for we had come to the delta. Diver pointed ahead and stared, like one in a dream; we all stared, and the dream took hold of us. A tracery of fine lines grew and wavered in the sky at the horizon, fading before our sight, then becoming solid; floating, then reaching firmly to the earth. It might have been a huge grove of white trees or the high columns and ridges of a mountain range; then the light changed and it was a net, a network of pure gold—the towers, the bastions, the spires, the skywalks, the sky-houses of the great city of Rintoul.

  Rintoul has been raised up and cast down, even in my own time, but the dream remains; the habit of perfection and grace inspires those who build there, those who live in the city, so that it regenerates and grows more beautiful from age to age. It has had blood spilled in the broad white streets, but they have been washed clean by letting in the sea; towers have toppled and been replaced by more resilient towers. There is no seamy underside to Rintoul, it is all well-made, smoothly plastered, cleverly woven, with winding basket ways to the higher levels, and the curtain walls of former times gently folding into the skyhouses of glass and stone where the grandees live.

  Rintoul is surrounded by beauty; as we sailed on through the delta lands, I gazed at the fields and trees and waterways and wondered how it would be to live there. The land was tamed and farmed but full of good places to fish or swim; Old Gwin was taken by the flower fields; Brin and Roy looked closely at the bird farms. Mamor was restless, standing in the bow with Diver’s glass as we sailed on the eastern channel, which is called Curweth. The city rode up on our right hand, covering the world high and low, but Mamor looked to the east and on the next evening he gave a shout and called me to his side.