by Gene Wolfe
"We are," Hound told him. "There's a candle in every lantern we sell, naturally, but we have no-"
The little shop was plunged in utter, blind darkness. "Look out," Oreb croaked warily. "Watch out."
5. HAUNTING DORP
Morning. I went to bed exhausted, and feel that I am exhausted still; but I want to bring this account, which has fallen behind so badly, up to date; and I know that I can sleep no longer-unlike my unlucky daughter, who as far as I know is sleeping yet.
We stayed at the inn for three nights, idling and telling idle tales of ghosts, war, and riot, until food and fodder were running low and the snow had stopped. She was still sleeping, but Sergeant Azijin demanded we go, which we did-Hide, poor Jahlee, the sergeant and his legermen, and me. She cannot be awakened. Hide and I contrived a rough litter for her; it was carried by her mule and a pack horse, and gave endless trouble.
Each of us has been put into a private house, whose owners are responsible for us. I am in a third-floor bedroom, cold and drafty, whose door is locked outside. They tried to feed me when I came, but I wanted only to rest. Now I am up, wearing my coat and wrapped in a quilt. There is a little fireplace, but no fire. Eventually someone will bring me food, and perhaps I can get wood and a fire. I hope so.
I, who am so seldom hungry these days, find that I am hungry now. Given my choice between food and fire, I believe I might choose the food, which surprises me. Oreb has gone. I would like to have something to give him when he comes back.
I have been praying. Sometimes I feel that the Outsider is as near me as he was to Silk; it was like that when I sacrificed upon the hilltop. Today it seems that he is busy far away and does not hear a word. Perhaps he is angry at me for befriending Jahlee, as I confess I have tried to do. What do the family charged with imprisoning her think of her at this moment? How I would love to know! Without me to keep them away, they are bound to find out soon.
I hesitate to write that she is an inhuma, but look at this account! See how much of it there is! Scarcely a word does not condemn me. I will not destroy it. No, I would sooner perish. If it condemns me, it will show equally that Hide is innocent. The inhumi are evil creatures, granted. How could they be otherwise?
More prayer and furious thought. Pacing the floor, wearing my quilt like a robe. Jahlee's spirit cannot return to her, that seems certain. I should never have returned while leaving her there. I must go back and bring her home, although I cannot imagine how it is to be accomplished.
We will be tried, even if they do not learn that Jahlee is an inhuma. Tried for restraining the fat trader. Robbed by the law of all we took from the robbers and-as I hope-released. Or enslaved, as Azijin seemed to think likely.
Food at last, and good food, too, and plenty of it. It was brought up around midday, by a big, pleasant-looking woman named Aanvagen. She and her husband own this house. Bread, butter, cheese, three kinds of sausage (this last I shall not believe when I reread this), fresh onions, pickled vegetables of a dozen sorts mixed together, mustard, and coffee, with a little flask of brandy which I am to use to season it to suit my taste. A feast! One on which I feasted considerably before stopping to write it all down.
I asked Aanvagen whether she was not afraid I might overpower her and escape when she brought my food. She answered very sensibly that she knew I would not because I had too many possessions-our baggage and the bandits' loot. "Goods" was her word. I would stay and face the court, she said, hoping to come away with something.
"And will I?"
"That Scylla will decide, mysire," said Aanvagen, which I did not find comforting. I dream of her again and again.
"Since you're not afraid of me, might I have my staff? It reminds me of happier times, and I miss it."
"In my kitchen it is. At once you need it, mysire?"
"No, I don't need it at all. I simply would like to have it, and I certainly won't try to harm you with it. If you'll let me go down and get it, I'll carry it back up. I hate to put you to so much trouble, Aanvagen." I confess I was hoping to gain a bit of freedom, enough to let me visit Jahlee.
Some while afterward a little servant girl with hair as bright as a tangerine came, bringing my staff and an armload of firewood. Her name is Vadsig, and she is a girl in fact, hardly more than a child. Recalling Onorifica, I showed her the face on my staff and declared that it could talk. She laughed and challenged me to make it say something. I explained that it was angry at her for laughing, and would probably never talk to her after that. She appeared to enjoy it all-which was certainly what I wanted-laid the fire, and went off to fetch coals from one of the others, promising to return at once; but she has been waylaid by her mistress, I fear.
* * *
What a dream! I want to record it before I forget it. Mora, Fava, and I were riding through a jungle on Green in an open carriage, the horses trotting purposefully ahead without a driver. I explained about Jahlee over and over, beginning each new explanation as soon as I had finished the last and interrupted at long intervals by pointless questions from one or the other. Mora wanted to know whether my room is above the kitchen, and Fava asked what color Vadsig's hair was; I remember those.
At last I asked where the carriage was taking us, and Scylla replied, cracking her arms like whips over the horses. Since the immense boles of the trees we passed and the monstrous, hairless beasts we glimpsed showed that we were on Green, I knew (as one "knows" all such senseless things in dreams) that we could never reach the sea unless I drove. In any event, I moved up to the driver's seat and took the reins; Mora sat beside me. Fearing that Fava might be angry, I looked behind us; she had become a dead doll, with Chenille's knife protruding from her ribs. The trees were gone. Dust swirled around us. I explained to Mora that I was taking us to Blue, but she had become Hyacinth.
That is all I can remember, although I feel sure there was more. All this, as I should make clear, took place after Vadsig came with the promised coals and lit my fire.
She wanted to know all about me, where I came from and where I had been, why I was under arrest and so on and so forth. I told her about Viron, how empty the city is now, and how a starless night can begin at midday and last for days, at which she became exceedingly skeptical. I told her I had sacrificed there, wearing the same torn and dirty robe I am wearing now, and took off the quilt (which I no longer required) and my coat so she could see it. She knows nothing of augury, poor child, and less of the gods. She said she would never believe in a god she could not see; I explained that she would never see the Outsider, who is the principal god here, and that even Silk had seen him only in a dream.
After that we talked about dreams, and she wanted me to tell her fortune, by which she meant that I was to practice augury as I had in Viron. One sausage remained, so I sacrificed it, the little fire in the grate our Sacred Window and our altar fire. She caught brandy blood in my empty cup and flung it into the flames, which gave us a fine flash of blue. After I had read her sausage (a wealthy marriage soon, happiness, and many children), and burned a piece of it, I gave her the rest. She is no plumper than my staff, poor child, although she insists that Aanvagen gives her enough to eat.
After she left, I prayed for a time and went to bed, and that is when I had the dream I have recounted. I cannot say what it means, and doubt that it means anything.
I have been trying to contrive some plan, but soon fall to rehashing my dream instead-planning seems so useless with our situation as it is. What can be planned when I have no freedom to carry any plan out? I might escape Aanvagen and her husband easily, and every god knows I care nothing for the loot. With considerable luck, I might steal a horse and escape from Dorp, leaving Hide to face the wrath of our captors alone, and poor Jahlee in her coma to be burned aliveneither of which I have the smallest intention of doing. They bind me far more securely than his cupidity could ever bind Nat.
At least I know what doll it was that searched for Hide.
How good it was to see Hyacinth, although it was on
ly for a moment and only in a dream! When Nettle and I lived in the Calde's Palace I disliked her, or thought I did. Each of us was jealous of the attention Silk gave the other, I think, which was as foolish as it was wrong. What a beautiful woman she was, good or bad. When someone is gifted, we think he should behave better than the rest of us, as Silk did. But in Silk's case, his goodness was his gift-a gift he had made for himself. It was the magnetism that drew others to him that caused his embryo to be put aboard a lander. That was the work of Pas's scientists, as Pig's size and strength were. (Recalling the Red Sun Whorl that it became, I cannot but wonder whether it did not sacrifice too much for us.)
His goodness he made for himself as a boy and a young man, as I wrote just a moment ago. No doubt he was prompted by his mother, but then all boys are. I was myself, but how much good did Mother's promptings do?
Oreb has returned, having found no one who might help us, and having nothing to report save cold and snow, dispirited and unwilling to converse.
* * *
We progress! Vadsig brought my breakfast today, and with it news better than any fried mush. Jahlee is being held in a house diagonally across the street from ours. I hurried to my window, but it looks in the wrong direction.
"Then please, Vadsig, I beg you, let me go to a window from which I can see it. If only I can I see, for a single minute, the house in which my poor daughter is a prisoner, I'll feel a thousand times better. I swear to you I won't run away, and I'll return to this room and let you lock me in again the moment you tell me I must go back."
It took a great deal of pleading, but she agreed. Out we went, ten steps down a little hallway and into a bedroom only slightly larger and more comfortable than mine. It was Vadsig's own, as she explained with touching pride-a narrow bed, half smothered by an old quilt intended for a bigger one, a fireplace with a woodbox, and an old chest that I feel sure has more than enough room for her entire wardrobe. Together we leaned from her window so that she might point out the window of the room in which poor Jahlee lies. "A doctor for her they want if the court for him will pay," confided Vadsig.
"Poor thing," muttered Oreb, and I agree. Let us hope that it will not.
Afterward she showed me her most prized possessions-a sketch of her dead parents by a street artist, and a cracked vase given her by Aanvagen. She is sixteen, she said; but under pressure admitted she might be no more than fifteen after all. I would say fourteen.
None of which means much. The important points are that Jahlee is confined within a short walk of where I sit, that she like me is on the third floor of a private house, and that Vadsig is inclined to be friendly. She promises to find Hide for me, as well. (Perhaps I should note that the house in which Jahlee is confined has a stone first story and two upper stories of wood, a kind of construction that seems very common here, and that the street is narrow but carries a good deal of traffic, mostly wagonloads of bales, barrels, or boxes.)
I returned to this room as I had promised, heard Vadsig's key squeak in the lock and the solid thump of the bolt, and knelt to squint through the keyhole, hoping for another glimpse of the only friend I have in this brutal, busy, savage seaport. I did not get it, however; the key was still in the lock.
That gave me an idea. I slid this sheet of paper under my door and used the point of one of Oreb's quills to tickle the key into a position that allowed me to poke it out. It fell, and I retrieved this sheet with infinite care, hoping to bring the key in with it. The sheet returned indeed, but the key did not, and I swore.
"No good?" Oreb inquired.
"Exactly," I told him. "Either the key is too thick to slide under the door, or it hit the paper and bounced off."
"Bird find."
I thought that he planned to fly out my window and re-enter the house by another and was about to warn him that it might be a long while before he found another window open in this cold weather, but he disappeared into a triangular hole I had not noticed previously where the wainscoting meets the chimney near the ceiling. In five minutes or less he was back with the key in his beak. I have hidden it in my stocking.
All this has given me another idea. I am going to write a letter to which I will sign Jahlee's name, and have Oreb push it between the shutters of her window for her captors to find. It can do us no harm, and may be of benefit.
* * *
Supper was late, as expected. Poor Vadsig looked everywhere for her key before confessing to Aanvagen that she had lost it; Aanvagen boxed her ears and so on, all of which was unfortunate but unavoidable; I comforted her as well as I could in Aanvagen's presence, and promised her a coral necklace when I am free.
"Sphigxday coming is, and you to the court going are," says Aanvagen, looking as somber as her fair hair and red face allow. She is a good woman at base, I believe. This is Molpsday, so I have nearly a week to wait. I must return Jahlee to Blue and consciousness before then. There can be no delay, no excuses; it must be done.
I left my room sometime after midnight, after Oreb reported that all the inhabitants were asleep. There are four: Aanvagen and Vadsig, "Cook," and "Master." After locating our baggage in a ground-floor storeroom off the kitchen and retrieving Maytera Mint's gift and some other things, I explored the rest of the house until I understood the plan of its floors thoroughly. It was dark by Blue's standards, although nothing to compare with the pitchy blackness of a darkday. Smoldering fires gave enough light to save me from tripping over furniture, Oreb advised me in hoarse whispers, and I groped my way with my staff.
When I felt I knew the house, I went outside. As expected, every door of the house in which Jahlee lies was locked. The key to my room will not open them, and I suspect they are barred at night, as the outer doors of this house are. Nothing more to report, save that I have asked Vadsig to bring me a lump of sealing wax so I can study the impression made by this ring. The stone is not actually black, I find; call it purple-gray.
Much shouting downstairs before lunch. Vadsig explained that she is not supposed to leave the house without permission, but that she had gone out to discover where Hide is being held. "Cook" caught her, and gave her a dressing down. "But finding him for you I am, Mysire Horn. In the house behind the house where your daughter is he is. Not happy there he is, these things the girl there tells. Up and down, up and down he walks. A thousand questions he asks."
"I see. I'm very sorry to hear this, Vadsig. I don't want to get you into any more trouble; but sometime when you are sent to the market do you think it might be possible for you to speak to him?"
"If it you wish, mysire, trying I am. Parel upstairs will let me go, that may be."
"Thank you, Vadsig. Thank you very, very much! I'm forever indebted to you. Vadsig, when we were in your room, you showed me the picture of your parents and your vase, things that are precious to you. Do you remember?"
She laughed and shook out her short, orange hair with a touch of the pride she showed in her bedroom. She has a good, merry laugh. "From yesterday not so quickly forgetting I am."
"I want to warn you that it's not wise to show precious things to everyone, Vadsig. You see, I'm going to give you something precious-the coral necklace I promised you; but it could get you into trouble if Aanvagen knew you had it. Do you think we could make it a little secret between the two of us? For the time being?"
"From me it she would take? This you think, mysire?"
I shrugged. "You know her much better than I do, Vadsig."
There was a lengthy pause while Vadsig reached a decision. "Not showing her, I am."
Oreb commended her. "Wise girl!"
"Stealing I am she thinking is… After court you giving it are, mysire?"
"No. Right now." I got out my paper and opened the pen case. "First, though, I'm going to write something you can show other people to prove that you're not a thief."
I did, and gave it to her; but finding that she was unable to read I read it aloud for her: Be it known that I, Horn, a traveler and a resident of New Viron, give thi
s coral necklace, having thirty four large beads of finegreen coral flushed with rose, to my friend Vadsig, a resident of Dorp. It comes to her as agift, freely given, and as of this day becomes her own private possession.
I got out the necklace and put it around her neck. She took it off at once to admire it, put it back on, took it off again, put it on once more, preened exactly as if she could see her reflection, her large blue eyes flashing-and in short showed as much satisfaction as if she had been snatched from the scullery and made mistress of a city.
"If you're able to talk to my son, Vadsig, will you please tell him where I'm confined, and what my circumstances are, and that we are to go to court on Sphigxday, which he may not know? And bring back any message that he has for me?"
"Trying I am, Mysire Horn."
"Wonderful! And succeeding, too, I feel sure. I have great confidence in you, Vadsig."
"But forgetting I am." Very reluctantly, the coral necklace was removed for the last time, dropped into an apron pocket, and concealed beneath a soiled handkerchief. "Mistress a question asks. Every dream you understanding are, mysire? That to her I have told."
I tried to explain that dreams were a bottomless subject, and that no one knows everything about them; but that I had been successful at times in interpreting the principal features of certain dreams.
"Last night strange dreams she and Master having are. Them you for her will explain?"
"I'll certainly attempt it, Vadsig. I'll do what I can."
"Telling her I am."
That was two hours ago, perhaps. Thus far, Aanvagen has not come to have her dream explained; nor has Vadsig returned to report on her attempt to speak with Hide in person. Might Hide and I rescue Jahlee-provided that I can free him, or he can free himself? I suppose it is possible, but the chances of failure will be very high. I would sooner trust myself and them to the mercy of the court, I believe.
