Serpent’s Egg

by R. A. Lafferty

  There are those who have found certain extravagances of detail in these true narrations taken from the true logs of Four Experiments and One Noble Ship and Two Lanes and one House that sank to the bottom of the Ocean. No, everything is accurate. It is that there is a lack of extravagance seen by those who wear blinders on their eyes. But things seen true do have this authentic extravagance and exuberance always.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE WHALES ARE BUILDING SOMETHING

  Before the Whales had lost their legs

  They built in deepest ocean dregs.

  The Whales build grand, they build galore:

  Build Castles on the Ocean Floor.

  The Whales build forts of Ocean Stone;

  Build stronger forts than Carcassonne.

  The Whales build fair with glad and glee;

  Build Mansions underneath the Sea.

  The Whales build straight by rule-of-thumb;

  Build Palaces in Kingdom Come.

  —The Child’s Big Book of Whales. Anon.

  “I love to sail the ocean quaint

  I love the waves that rush-o.

  I love to paint with sightless paint,

  I love to whack my brush-o.”

  —Ballad of Invisible Alfred

  “The great underwater City of Lyonesse off of Land's End in Brittany of France has amazed all the ocean-archeologists. It has been called the City of Giants and the City of Titans. Why are these great halls and corridors and arcades and concourses so large? Why are the stone couches (for they are nothing else) twenty times the length of a man? Why are the stone risers of the huge staircases thirty feet in height?

  “There are some who say that Lyonesse was indeed built by the Titans when, after they were overthrown by the Gods of Olympus, they fled from their ancestral inner sea to the outer ocean. There are some who say that the City was built by the Sons of Anak, the Giants of the Old Testament.

  “But I believe that it was built by whales.”

  —The Back Door of History. Arpad Arutinov.

  When false dawn had turned into true and the sky was whitening (this was on the early morning of the Second Day of Summerset), it could be seen that the whales, who had arrived in that extreme part of Inneall's Ocean only the day before, were making a great turmoil in the water.

  They were diving, they were sounding, they were bringing up mud and dregs from the bottom of the still-shallow Ocean.

  “They will kill themselves ramming their heads and mouths into the too-shallow bottom,” Livius Secundus the Ambulatory Computer who was also an historian said. “Cannot someone talk to the whales and explain to them that it's too shallow? Can you talk to whales, Marino?”

  “Sure,” said Marino the Seal. “Can't you?”

  “I had the Ocean here sounded yesterday,” Satrap Saint Ledger answered. “It was three furlongs deep (three-eighths of a mile deep) at its shallowest place. And it's deeper now. It's growing deeper every day. If it were deeper, the whales would hit bottom even harder. They can't get up proper speed in even a half mile. They're excavating, you see.”

  “Excavating for what, Satrap?” Livius Secundus asked.

  “I don't know. To get down to bed-rock I suppose. And the ‘big lime’ is bed-rock here and isn't very deep. They will build a Castle or Palace or Monument of some sort. All we can guess is that it will be huge and that its architecture will be Contemporary Oceanic. I'm trafficking in limestone with them. They've already taken most of the really big limestones, and now they're dealing with four other building-rock firms as well as my own.”

  “How did you set up a deal like that, Satrap?”

  “Dolphins were the middlemen. They brought in a squid-skin tarp that was floated by several hundred blow-fish bladders. It had about three hundred pounds of nugget ocean gold on it. They wanted all the big limestones they could get for that much gold. We've been loading them on tip-barges for several hours and taking them out and dumping them at the designated places in the ocean. I've delivered about a thousand tons of big limestone since midnight, and the other four building-stone firms have probably delivered another thousand tons. They'll have the start of some pretty big structures done before this morning is over with. I enjoy doing business with the whales. They're real gentlemen.”

  “Has this anything to do with Tom Dooley Island, Satrap?”

  “I don't know, Livius. The whales seem to be building their thing about a half mile from Tom Dooley's Island itself.”

  “According to the Pythoness the island will sink into the ocean today, but so far it is riding in the water as high as it was yesterday. But there seems to be something gone wrong with Tom Dooley's Island. Parts of it go out. They just aren't there for a while. And then they are there again.”

  “Oh, that's only the good ship Annabella Saint Ledger, Livius. The Royal Kids painted it with invisible paint during the night. When it comes between us and Tom Dooley's Island, it makes that part of the island invisible, blocks it out with its own bulk. The ship isn't really invisible, of course. It's only about ninety-nine percent invisible. But the paint does conceal it pretty well from enemies. And I'm afraid that it will have many enemies this day and tomorrow.”

  “What kind of enemies, Satrap?”

  “Oh, the Principalities and Powers, that sort of thing.”

  “This clown, this Joker, can he plan, can he think, can he handle situations, has he a good name with good people? This clown, does he have brains?”

  —Enniscorthy Chronicle

  Invisible Alfred announced himself to be a Prophet—“aye, and more than a Prophet. For I am he for whom the endless ages have yearned, and whoever comes to me will not go away empty.”

  On the Ship Annabella Saint Ledger, the howling of the devil-fish who had been wolverenes was an offense to the ears and dispositions of everybody on board. Not only did they roar like wolverenes and devils and sea-satans, but they also taunted in human voices. “Throw Carcajou to us,” they bantered. “Throw Ruddy Lord Randal to us. Throw Inneall to us. We'll tear them to pieces in their bodies and brains and souls and essences. We'll eat them alive, we'll eat them dead. Throw them to us!” Well, the cries were piercing, and all the people on the Annabella Saint Ledger had blood running out of their ears on account of them. And that is why, when Invisible Alfred began to preach, Ruddy Lord Randal called out to Alfred: “If you must preach, Invisible Alfred, preach to those damned Devil-Fish. Are not your own invisible ears bleeding invisible blood on account of them also. Teach them a little deportment. Preach and pray that they receive the gift of silence.”

  “Their voices bother you?” Invisible Alfred asked as if amazed. “But all voices on Earth and in the Ocean praise me whenever they sound, whether they intend it or not. All of them rebound to my glory. Rather than pray that they may receive the gift of silence, I will pray that you receive the gift of patience.” Invisible Alfred spoke with power and softness. (Notice sometimes that all Prophets have such ambiguous voices.) “But that you may know that I have the power—I will quiet the Devil-Fishes for a little while only. I was not sent to save Devils but honest People and Machines and Animals. But that you may know that I have the Power over Devils also—

  “Be quiet, Devil-Fish. I place an impediment on the tongue of each one of you. Hold your peace and make no more outcry for a while. I will tell you when you may give voice again.”

  And unaccountably the eleven Devil-Fish, they who had been the eleven Devil-Wolverenes, fell silent. The silence was so sudden and so total that it might almost have been called an echoing silence.

  There was no doubt that Invisible Alfred scored in this. But to be a success in the Prophesying-and-Denouncing business, one must score again and again. Besides that, Alfred was wasted on the small number of witnesses, only the Royal Kids and the Pirate Crew of the Ship. But he took steps to increase his crowd and to speak from his weird advantage. Though neither his eyes nor the inside of his mouth were very good, yet the fact that they were the only things of
him ever seen was an advantage. Yes, but he’d have come on stronger if he’d had stronger eyes. But no Prophet has everything, and he did use his ambiguous Prophet's Voice well.

  “Captain and Crewmen!” he cried out now in his dubious voice, “put the ship in to the Ocean Shore where the depth of the water comes right up to the shore bank.” It is nearly certain that Invisible Alfred had just heard Lord Randal give that exact order, to put in to shore at that exact place. But Alfred took advantage of it, and he spoke as the ship went there:

  “There are three great places from which crowds may be addressed: from strategic balconies overlooking vast plazas, from mountains with green slopes where crowds may recline, and from ships brought right up to land. But the strategic balcony is not available to me, nor was it to the Christus. The balconies are for the rich and the powerful, not for poor and barefoot Prophets. Believe me that I am barefooted though my feet are invisible to you. And the ideal mountain is not at hand. I could ask for it, of course, and it would be given to me, but that would be too great a sign to give you this day. So I will speak from shipboard, as did the Christus often. Captain and Crewmen, slew the Ship around on its holding kedge anchor and bring it aft to the shore. I will talk to the multitudes from this high little poop deck.”

  Invisible Alfred had just heard Lord Randal give the order to slew the ship about on its kedge anchor and bring it aft to the shore, but the people on shore couldn't have heard Lord Randal's order. And they did hear the words of Invisible Alfred.

  “Repent, ye multitudes, and listen to my words,” Invisible Alfred now spoke directly to the crowd that was gathering on shore, attracted by the novelty of him. “Let your ears be circumcised so you can hear me better! Know you how I became what I am, how I became the Invisible Alfred? Like Jonah, a fellow Prophet, I spent three days in the belly of a whale. It was from that experience that my skin became whited (from the digestive juices in the whale's stomach) and of no color at all, it was from that experience that I became so colorless that I was already half invisible.”

  Some of the people in the gathering crowd laughed in a way that Invisible Alfred might not exactly have wished for. The Pleasure People who were spending the day at New Oceanside, at the part of it which had been named Heart's Desire Cove when it was still a Cove, had already thronged to the shore in the number of ten thousand. There was a natural amphitheater there in the folding of the hills and it always seemed easy to gather a crowd into it. These people liked to be entertained, and they liked to cross words with the mountebanks.

  “Hey, All-Eyes-And-Mouth,” someone in the crowd called out, “you don't look like much. What did the whale look like after he’d voided you?”

  “I'll show you,” Invisible Alfred spoke with his soft power, and he stretched out his hand. A really magnificent whale broke the glassy smooth surface of the Ocean, bowed himself clear of the water, and spouted a rousing royal spout of water and steam as he fell back. Invisible Alfred had scored again. And he went with confidence into his rigmarole.

  “Repent, you the multitudes, and listen to my words,” he spoke with his strong and flexible voice that he could pop like a whip. “After I had been three nights and three days in the whale's belly, I spent nine thousand years in a one-hundred-gallon drum that had held invisible paint before it was emptied. From the residue of the invisible paint, I drew the power of near-invisibility. Full invisibility is never given all at once. Know you though that near-invisibility is a two-sided gift. The more nearly invisible a person becomes, the more nearly are all things visible to that person. Even your most invisible thoughts are not invisible to me. I see them all.

  “I know which ones of you are good and which ones of you are evil; and I know which ones of you need be evil no longer. It is to you people of the third condition that I say ‘Repent! Repent!’ and again ‘Repent!’

  “You think that I am funny-looking because only my eyes are visible to you. Only my eyes, and the inside of my mouth when I open it to utter words of wisdom. Know you that this was also the appearance of God himself when he spoke to Moses out of the Burning Bush, when he spoke out of the Whirlwind, when he spoke on the Mountain of the Commandments. Only his eyes could be seen, and the inside of his mouth when he uttered words. And the words themselves could be seen when they came out of his mouth, bright and winged words. So are my words bright and winged if only you have the ears to hear and the eyes to see.”

  Some of the people began to laugh. Oh, Invisible Alfred had scored points, but there was something lacking. It was a stroke of genius that only his eyes should be visible. But it didn't work as well as it might have, because he had weak and washed-out eyes.

  “Shall I give you another sign?” he popped his voice like a whip. He had some good tricks he could do with his voice, but a limited number of them. “Shall I map the heavens to you in broad daylight?” he asked. “Will you understand it even if I do? Behold then the zone and girdle of the heavens! Please dim the sun a little bit. Good!”

  The sun did dim, though there were not any clouds in the sky, nor did Invisible Alfred call any clouds into being. But he did cause the zone and girdle of the heavens to appear, the circle of signs, the circle of animals, the zodiac. The Twelve Constellations were too high above the horizons for verisimilitude. And in strict accuracy, some of them should have been below the horizon. But they did appear clearly, even shockingly and garishly, in the sky of the curious dimmed sun: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces.

  “These twelve are not the faces of the signs themselves,” Alfred spoke. “They are only the conventional masks of those faces. Shall I let you see the signs that are behind the masks? Would you understand them better if you saw them unmasked?”

  Then another sign appeared above each of the twelve in the sky. Above Cancer the Crab was Crocodilus the Crocodile, above Leo the Lion was Panther the composite All-Animal (Pan-Ther, All-The-Animals; not what you usually mean by Panther). Above Pisces the Fishes were two Leviathans. Above Virgo the Virgin was Kanguruus the Kangaroo. Some of the doublets could not be identified by the uninitiated, but all of them seemed to be full of meaning. And yet people were giggling and laughing. Why?

  Oh, it had been really stunning when all of this had appeared in the sky. But it became a little bit less than stunning when it was seen that all the apparitions were no more than badly-drawn cartoons, and that the Prophet Invisible Alfred did not know that they were badly-drawn.

  “You laugh, you snigger!” Invisible Alfred cried in his flexible, but of limited scope, voice. “Here is all the wisdom of the ages limned out, and you laugh. You generation of vipers, do you even realize that Vipera the Viper is the true sign behind the mask of Scorpio? Do you even see the pleroma, the totality that I have drawn in the sky? Or is it too large for your squinty eyes to see? Do you even know that the Apostles were the twelve stations, and that they came down from the sky literally? Thomas, for instance, was Gemini the Twins. It has always been a puzzle why Thomas, a singleton, should have been referred to as ‘the twin’ in the Gospels. Who is that mouth-man who calls out? Do I not know, he asks, that astrology is a pseudo science? Oh, I suppose it is, but more accurately it is a parable-science, an attempt to describe a parable-universe. Our Universe is only a parable to illustrate a point. It is material, yes: for it was intended to illustrate a material point. But it is not real.

  “Some people have said lately that we now come to the time of the ‘Enlargement of the World’. They see such things as talking animals and preternatural powers (setting fires by the mind, making oceans, removing mountains, such trifles as that) as indications that the World is being enlarged. But this is rubbish. Can the number twelve, the foundation number of the world, be enlarged? If you enlarge it by three will it still be twelve? Oh you laugh at me! Have a care. My anger is something to behold. For a punishment I will call out the names of ten of you out of the ten thousand who are listening to me and mocking me. And
these ten will all die within ten minutes, though they are all at this moment in exuberant health. Their deaths will be verified, and you still will not believe. A venial and adulterous generation comes hardly to belief. Arsene Abbot, Lolly Jane Abboud, Elias Abdo, Sally Abel (Oh, I must have a caution here; I notice that there are two named Sally Abel in the crowd. Sally E. Abel you will die; Sally J. Abel, you will live till another day) Alice Abercrombie, Thompson Abernathy, Scott Ableson, Billy Joe Abney, David E. Abraham, Morris Abt. These ten will die. And even though I tell them that they have less than ten minutes to live, they do not have the wisdom to repent.”

  The laughter was pretty general by then, and it was not confined to the humans. Chortling crows scampered around in the middle air, tickled black by the humor of this mountebank. Fish and eels and squids guffawed on the surface of the Ocean. Leaping dolphins laughed and hooted in derision.

  Invisible Alfred showed a touch of dignity then. He closed his mouth and he closed his eyes. And then he was completely invisible and nobody could know whether he was still standing there on the poop-deck of the Ship, or whether he had gone elsewhere.

  Well yes, the ten persons named by the Prophet Invisible Alfred did die within the ten minutes, but what of that? Ten persons out of ten thousand, one person out of a thousand, that is not so many persons to die accidentally. People are dying all the time. But to die within ten minutes? Oh, for that matter, every person who dies does it within a millionth of a second, though nobody can know just which millionth of a second it is.

  But the Royal Kids weren't especially apologetic when a laughing reporter came to get a story on it an hour later. The reporter was named Roy Latta. “Does it not rather taint your own ‘movement’, if you have a movement, to have such an obviously phoney connected with it?” Roy asked them.