Return to the Whorl tbotss-3

by Gene Wolfe

  "There is another factor. When we go, we often seem to arrive in a place resembling the one we left. That was why I lured you onto this boat, Juganu. I had promised Scylla that I would take her to the sea of her native whorl if I could. Once I walked along a road that runs beside Gyoll and looked at the boats plying its water, so I hoped that if we left Blue from a boat we would arrive aboard a boat there. So it proved. That it was going downstream was sheer good fortune. Slice your potatoes. Be careful, though. They'll still be hot."

  While they were frying I asked him whether we were here or there when we were there, because I had been thinking about the way he had said that the girl had not been with us, not really.

  "We are in both places. The philosophers-I am none-tell us that it is impossible for a single object to be in two places at once. We are not indivisible wholes, however."

  I said, "Part of us was here, and part there?"

  He nodded. "And now that we've been on that boat on the river we should be able to return, though the boat itself will be in a new location. We'll test that supposition tonight."

  While we were eating he explained that he had brought us back fast because he had been worried about the boat, especially because Babbie had come and would not be around to take care of things here. "That was a surprise, and a rather unpleasant one," Father told me, "though it was interesting to discover just how human Babbie is." He stopped speaking to study the western horizon.

  Juganu said, "What about me?"

  Father shook his head. "I knew you were human in spirit. Remember that I had an adopted daughter-one I mourn. I had an adopted son once, too." He sighed, and I saw then how hard it was for him to keep a cheerful face, as he generally did.

  His bird dropped onto his shoulder. "Have bird!"

  "Yes. A great blessing." He gave the bird a bit of bacon, then put his plate down in front of Babbie. He had eaten two or three mouthfuls. "I hate to disturb your meal, son, but I believe we'd better take in the jigger and reef the main."

  We did, and the wind came as I was tying the last knot. I have been in worse blows, and in fact I was in a couple when we sailed with Captain Wijzer; but it would have been foolish to go back to the Red Sun Whorl until things had quieted down, three or four hours after daylight.

  Down in the cabin, Father and Juganu and I took off our clothes and dried ourselves as well as we could. It felt very good to lie on my bunk then and shut my eyes, so I did not see things change the way I had before.

  After a while somebody shook my shoulder. I opened them, and it was dark again.

  "Get up," he said. "You don't want to sleep through this."

  That was exactly what I did want, but after a minute or so it sort of soaked through to me that I was lying on wood instead of my bunk, and the boat was not rocking the way I remembered.

  Some people that read this may not know about boats, so I am going to say here that they're all different. Two that are about the same size and look about the same will act about the same sometimes, but they are never exactly the same. The Samru, which was the big river boat we were on, was a roller, and when you were up on the high parts, it really rolled a lot, just like you had climbed up the mast of a regular boat.

  Our boat was more of a rocker. Rocking is not the same as rolling. Rolling is smoother, but to me it always feels like it is just going to keep on till the boat turns over. Our boat was more of a pitcher, too, because it was only about a quarter as long.

  Anyway, I sat up then but it was so dark I could not see much. I asked the man who had my shoulder who he was, and he said, "Juganu," which made me jump.

  Just then there was a white light that lit up everything, and I saw Father out on the bowsprit holding it up. His bird was on his shoulder, and the girl he said was Scylla was out on the bowsprit too, farther out even than he was.

  Then he shut his hand and the light was gone, and everything was as black as inside a cave. I heard the watch asking each other questions. Afterward I found out they had been sleeping on the deck, mostly. I heard boots, too, but I did not pay much attention to them.

  I was trying to get forward, and afraid of bumping into a mast or something worse. I was not even sure this boat had a railing all the way around, because ours did not have any railing at all, and I was afraid of falling off. So while I was worrying about all that, I bumped somebody short and hairy and as hard as rock. I knew who that was right away, and how dangerous he was, too, so I said, "It's me, Babbie. It's Hoof," very quick.

  Something happened then that surprised me as much as just about anything I saw on the Red Sun Whorl, except for the part right at the last. Because Babbie threw his arms around me and gave me a great big hug, saying "Huh! Huh! Huh!" and lifted me off my feet. Babbie's arms were shorter than mine, but thicker than my legs, and he was the strongest person I ever met.

  About then the mate came up, and Babbie put me down. The mate had a lantern, and he kept holding it up in my face, and then in Babbie's and then in Juganu's. Neither of them liked it. I did not like it much myself. After a while I decided that he was looking for Father but he had probably been down in the middle of the boat when Father held up his light, so he had not seen him.

  I was afraid that if I told the mate where Father was, he would make him fall off. So I said, "What's the trouble? If you need help, we'll lend a hand."

  All those people were hard to understand because of the way they talked, and he was one of the hardest. He said something and I had to get him to say it over two or three times before I understood it. "Taught y'as gun." He talked like that all the time, but I am not going to write it like that, or not much.

  "We're back," Juganu told him.

  "Where'd y'go?" he wanted to know.

  I pretended I had not understood that either and said, "You're looking for Father, aren't you? Wasn't that why you were shining your light in our faces?"

  He agreed.

  "Father has hired this boat. He'll want a full report. Where are we?"

  "Half day from the delta. Where's he?"

  "What time is it? How long till morning?"

  "Not long."

  By that time I had seen his face well enough to realize that he was not the man Father had given the gold to. I said "You're not the captain. Where is he?"

  "Sleepin'."

  "Bring him here. Father will want to see him."

  The mate started to argue, and I said, "Bring him at once!"

  He swung at me then. I ducked, and Babbie grabbed his arm and threw him down so fast and hard that he might as well have been a girl's doll. The lantern fell down and went out.

  Father must have heard the noise, and he was there like he had flown. He opened his hand to let some light get out, and Babbie was sitting on the mate and had both his arms together in one of his hands. His hands were a lot bigger than his real ones back home, but he still had the really thick nails he walked on, and only two big fingers on each hand. Father made him get off and told the mate to sit up. He was a big, strong-looking man with one of those faces that are all cheeks and chin.

  "I'm sorry you were hurt, if you were," Father told him. "Babbie can be too quick to take offense. I realize that."

  Babbie was pointing to his mouth. "Huh-huh-huh." I thought he wanted Father to change him so he could talk, and I did not think Father could do that. But Father knew right away what he wanted. He gave Babbie a big curved knife with a double-edged blade, and then another one just like it, telling him he had to be careful how he used them.

  The mate tried to say something, what he was going to do to Babbie someday, but Scylla told him to fetch the captain or we would make him jump overboard. Father's hand was almost closed then so she was hard to see, but she took hold of the mate like she was going to turn him around, and her hands and arms did not even come close to being as much like ours as Babbie's were. They were like snakes, with sucking mouths all along them. The mate kept backing away from her, and they got longer, till finally he ran away. Juganu said, "Blood,
" and it sounded like he was praying.

  Father's light went out, I think because he did not want me to see Scylla.

  She said, "No do? You do?" and Juganu said, "No. Never."

  I was thinking that it was probably a lot easier to change your shape like she had if you were not really here. I tried to touch her, but I could not find her in the dark.

  Father asked if we knew what we were doing, why we wanted to find the sea, and Juganu and I both said no.

  "I'm tired," he told us. "I need to rest my back. Shall we go home? It will be safer, as I must tell you."

  Juganu begged then. I will not write what he said or what happened. I could not see much of it, but I still heard it even when I looked the other way. Finally Father said all right, we would stay till daylight.

  We went over to the railing and sat down. It was pretty dark, but not really completely dark. There was a red lantern at the top of one mainmast, and two hanging over the high deck aft. Those were white, but that was a good long way away at night, and that deck was higher than the one we were on, even though our deck was higher than the middle of the boat. I asked Father why we came back to this deck when we had been on the other one, but he said he did not know, he was just thankful we had ended up in the boat and not in the water.

  Scylla was sitting on one side of me, which I did not like, but there was nothing I could do about it. She wanted to know when we would get to the sea, and that was when it came to me that what I smelled when I first got there was the sea, not ours but Ocean, the sea of the Red Sun Whorl. It smelled different, maybe because it was bigger or had more salt in it, or just because it was older. I got so interested in thinking about that I never heard what Father told Scylla. Probably it was that nobody could say because it depended on the wind.

  His bird did not like her and would not come to me because I was next to her. I tried to find out whether it knew she was the one who had been in it, but it would only say "Bad girl!" and "No eat." It said, "No, no!" and "Good bird!" a lot too, no matter what I wanted to know.

  "In the Whorl I was told that the inferior gods had turned themselves into animals to escape Pas," Father told me. "It embarrasses me now, but I must admit I thought it a mere legend. It was in fact a myth, that is to say a story containing an important element of truth. His Cognizance Patera Incus honored me by asking me to assist him when he sacrificed at the Grand Manteion, which of course I did. Scylla-as she has told me-seized the opportunity to possess Oreb, having overheard my conversation with His Cognizance through his glass."

  I thought he meant a glass like you drink out of, but then I remembered the reading about the things you can see and talk through in my real father's book.

  He told Scylla, "I still don't understand how you managed to escape Pas for so long."

  She said, "Good place. No find."

  She had sounded as if she was about to cry, and he said, "It's been twenty years and more. He will forgive you, surely."

  "No, no. Never."

  After that nobody said anything. Green came up, bigger and brighter than we ever see it on Blue. Or want to, either. The captain saw us and came running. He did not have his sword this time, but the mate was behind him and he had a long stick that smelled like smoke. From the way he held it, I knew it was some kind of weapon; and I kept my eye on it the whole time.

  "Welcome," the captain said. "Welcome! We thought you deserted us."

  Father explained that we had other affairs to attend to and would be leaving from time to time. The captain asked if we were hungry and invited us to join him at breakfast. Father thanked him but said we would stay where we were, and the captain and the mate went away.

  "He was a long time fetching him," Juganu said, "and I wouldn't mind trying some of your human food."

  I said I would have thought that just blood every time would get boring, but he said it did not, that there were hundreds of different kinds.

  Father said, "Go ahead, if you wish. I'm sure he'll be happy to feed you. Just remember that if we are forced to leave without you, you won't be able to return on your own. We'll do our best to safeguard your physical self."

  Juganu trotted away, and I told Father I thought he would stay here all the time if he could.

  Scylla said, "No me."

  "Even if you could do that with your arms?" I asked her.

  She looked so bad I was sorry I said it. The bird said, "Poor girl! Poor girl!" and I tried to touch her, to pat her back or something, but she did not feel right and I jerked my hand away.

  Father said, "She is less even than we. If Oreb were to die she would not be here at all."

  His bird kicked up a fuss when it heard him say that, and he had to quiet it down.

  We talked awhile, and I said, "This is the Red Sun Whorl. When are we going to see the red sun?"

  He pointed astern, and I stood up and looked, and then I climbed up the ratlines to see it better. The Red Sun was rising behind us, and the old falling-down city was between us and it. It was so big and so dark, like a great big coal buried in ashes. You could look right at it, and the whole city was black against it, thin towers and thicker ones, and there were some you could see through and see the little thin lines of the beams holding them up.

  You could see how big that city was, and it was bigger than I had ever imagined when we first went on the boat in the river and were in the middle of it. It went on forever to the north and the south, and down the river, too, almost to where we were, walls falling down and broken towers and so many little ruined houses nobody could ever live in anymore that my brother and I could have spent our whole lives trying to count them all, and when we died we would only have just started.

  But up against the Red Sun like that, you saw how little the city was, too. This is hard to explain. The city was immense. Just immense. Huge. Nobody will believe this, but if you had taken all the towns on Blue and bunched them together, and then added all the cities that Father used to talk about up in the old whorl, you could have taken all that and set it down in this city; and then if you had gone away for a year and come back, you would not have been able to find it.

  There was a wall around it. Just off at the edges you could see that, way far away to the east and so far to the north and south you could not be sure you were seeing it at all; but it must have been about as tall as the tallest towers, and it was a wall. It was probably the biggest thing that people had ever made, but it was dead and rotting like the rest.

  So it was all so big that when I looked at it, it was hard to breathe. But the sun kept on rising and rising, and Nessus was little. Finally I shut my eyes and would not look at it anymore. I had seen the way things really are, and I knew it. I knew that I was going to have to forget it as much as I could if I wanted to go on living. After Father left I was still curious about the Vanished People, and I asked a man I met one time about them because he seemed like somebody who might know something. He said there were things that we are not supposed to know. I think he was wrong, but right, too. I do not think that there is anything about the Vanished People that we should not know, just a whole lot that we do not. But the way things really are is something that we cannot deal with. I had to shut my eyes, and if you had been there you would have had to shut yours too.

  When I looked back down at the foredeck, Father and Babbie were still there, right where I had left them, but I could not see Scylla at all. I climbed down the ratlines and there she was again, then when we went back to our boat she was gone.

  We could have used her, because there was another boat, and it was full of men with slug guns. I shook out the mainsail fast and set the big jib we had not used before. Father stood up at the tiller and tried to talk to them, but they shot at him. I went and got his sword, Azoth, and gave it to him. He did not want to use it at first, but when I was shot he cut off the whole front of their boat.

  "I did my best not to kill them," he told me, "but I killed two. Their bodies are back there in the water." I said it did no
t make any difference since the others would drown, and he said he hoped not. Later while Father was resting, Juganu flew back to get some of them. It was nearly dark then where we were.

  Here I want to tell you about how Scylla went out to talk to the Great Scylla, but there are a couple other things I ought to tell about first, about the knives Father gave Babbie and what Scylla told Father at night in the dark.

  So I am just going to put all that in here. Some of it he told me while we were waiting for daylight on the river boat, and some was while Juganu and Babbie were holding me down and he was straightening out my wound and bandaging it. (I was wiggling around quite a bit and he kept talking to me, I think mostly to try to keep me still.) Some was after that, too, while he was making potato soup with the fish.

  To tell the truth, I am not exactly sure what he said where, so I am putting it all here.

  About the knives. I wanted to know where he got them. I had been watching as good as I could in the dark and did not see him take them from anyplace. So he told me we could make things there that were not really real but were like real for as long as we wanted them. He said he had made the gold like that, but the captain probably did not know it was not there when he was not around because he had locked it in a strongbox. Naturally I wanted to know if I could do that, too; and he said I could but I would have to be careful or they would know it was a trick. I said I would be.

  Scylla was Pas's daughter. Father talked like there were a lot of them, but he said she was the oldest one and the most important. She and her mother and some of Pas's other sprats had tried to kill him because they did not want people leaving the old whorl to come to Blue where they would not be the gods. So they tried to kill Pas, and for a long while they thought they had done it, and nobody would ever get to come. But Pas came back, and they had to hide.

  There were two ways to hide, Father said. One was to hide in Mainframe. Scylla had talked about that, and he said she would know a lot more about all that than he did, but Mainframe was like the tunnels under the old whorl. There were branches and side tunnels and rooms and caves nobody knew about. So Scylla and the others that had tried to kill Pas hid in them, but not the way we would have. It was like I could hide my finger over here and my thumb over there. They had hidden little pieces of themselves all over, and Pas was still hunting for them and killing every little piece when he found it.