Swords Against Darkness

by Paula Guran

  “Very well, I am thirty—” (Thus she would soliloquize.) “But what, O Yp, is thirty? Thrice ten. Twice fifteen. Women marry at forty. In ten years I will be forty—”

  And so on. From these apostrophizations she returned uncomfortable, ugly, old and with a bad conscience. She had a conscience, though it was not active in the usual directions. One morning, after these nightly wrestlings, the girl was leaning over the rail of the boat, her hair dangling about her face, watching the fish in the water and her own reflection. Occasionally she yawned, opening her pink mouth and shutting her eyes; all this Alyx watched surreptitiously. She felt uncomfortable. All morning the heat had been intense and mirages of ships and gulls and unidentified objects had danced on the horizon, breaking up eventually into clumps of seaweed or floating bits of wood.

  “Shall I catch a fish?” said Edarra, who occasionally spoke now.

  “Yes—no—” said Alyx, who held the rudder.

  “Well, shall I or shan’t I?” said Edarra tolerantly.

  “Yes,” said Alyx, “if you—” and swung the rudder hard. All morning she had been watching black, wriggling shapes that turned out to be nothing; now she thought she saw something across the glittering water. One thing we shall both get out of this, she thought, is a permanent squint. The shape moved closer, resolving itself into several verticals and a horizontal; it danced and streaked maddeningly. Alyx shaded her eyes.

  “Edarra,” she said quietly, “get the swords. Hand me one and the dagger.”

  “What?” said Edarra, dropping a fishing line she had begun to pick up.

  “Three men in a sloop,” said Alyx. “Back up against the mast and put the blade behind you.”

  “But they might not—” said Edarra with unexpected spirit.

  “And they might,” said Alyx grimly, “they just might.”

  Now in Ourdh there is a common saying that if you have not strength, there are three things which will serve as well: deceit, surprise and speed. These are women’s natural weapons. Therefore when the three rascals—and rascals they were or appearances lied—reached the boat, the square sail was furled and the two women, like castaways, were sitting idly against the mast while the boat bobbed in the oily swell. This was to render the rudder useless and keep the craft from slewing round at a sudden change in the wind. Alyx saw with joy that two of the three were fat and all were dirty; too vain, she thought, to keep in trim or take precautions. She gathered in her right hand the strands of the fishing net stretched inconspicuously over the deck.

  “Who does your laundry?” she said, getting up slowly. She hated personal uncleanliness. Edarra rose to one side of her.

  “You will,” said the midmost. They smiled broadly. When the first set foot in the net, Alyx jerked it up hard, bringing him to the deck in a tangle of fishing lines; at the same instant with her left hand—and the left hand of this daughter of Loh carried all its six fingers—she threw the dagger (which had previously been used for nothing bloodier than cleaning fish) and caught the second interloper squarely in the stomach. He sat down, hard, and was no further trouble. The first, who had gotten to his feet, closed with her in a ringing of steel that was loud on that tiny deck; for ninety seconds by the clock he forced her back towards the opposite rail; then in a burst of speed she took him under his guard at a pitch of the ship and slashed his sword wrist, disarming him. But her thrust carried her too far and she fell; grasping his wounded wrist with his other hand, he launched himself at her, and Alyx—planting both knees against his chest—helped him into the sea. He took a piece of the rail with him. By the sound of it, he could not swim. She stood over the rail, gripping her blade until he vanished for the last time. It was over that quickly. Then she perceived Edarra standing over the third man, sword in hand, an incredulous, pleased expression on her face. Blood holds no terrors for a child of Ourdh, unfortunately.

  “Look what I did!” said the little lady.

  “Must you look so pleased?” said Alyx, sharply. The morning’s washing hung on the opposite rail to dry. So quiet had the sea and sky been that it had not budged an inch. The gentleman with the dagger sat against it, staring.

  “If you’re so hardy,” said Alyx, “take that out.”

  “Do I have to?” said the little girl, uneasily.

  “I suppose not,” said Alyx, and she put one foot against the dead man’s chest, her grip on the knife and her eyes averted; the two parted company and he went over the side in one motion. Edarra turned a little red; she hung her head and remarked, “You’re splendid.”

  “You’re a savage,” said Alyx.

  “But why!” cried Edarra indignantly. “All I said was—”

  “Wash up,” said Alyx, “and get rid of the other one; he’s yours.”

  “I said you were splendid and I don’t see why that’s—”

  “And set the sail,” added the six-fingered pick-lock. She lay down, closed her eyes and fell asleep.

  Now it was Alyx who did not speak and Edarra who did; she said, “Good morning,” she said, “Why do fish have scales?” she said, “I like shrimp; they look funny,” and she said (once), “I like you,” matter-of-factly, as if she had been thinking about the question and had just then settled it. One afternoon they were eating fish in the cabin—“fish” is a cold, unpleasant, slimy word, but sea trout baked in clay with onion, shrimp and white wine is something else again—when Edarra said:

  “What was it like when you lived in the hills?” She said it right out of the blue, like that.

  “What?” said Alyx.

  “Were you happy?” said Edarra.

  “I prefer not to discuss it.”

  “All right, madam,” and the girl swept up to the deck with her plate and glass. It isn’t easy climbing a rope ladder with a glass (balanced on a plate) in one hand, but she did it without thinking, which shows how accustomed she had become to the ship and how far this tale has advanced. Alyx sat moodily poking at her dinner (which had turned back to slime as far as she was concerned) when she smelled something char and gave a cursory poke into the firebox next to her with a metal broom they kept for the purpose. This ancient firebox served them as a stove. Now it may have been age, or the carelessness of the previous owner, or just the venomous hatred of inanimate objects for mankind (the religion of Yp stresses this point with great fervor), but the truth of the matter was that the firebox had begun to come apart at the back, and a few flaming chips had fallen on the wooden floor of the cabin. Moreover, while Alyx poked among the coals in the box, its door hanging open, the left front leg of the creature crumpled and the box itself sagged forward, the coals inside sliding dangerously. Alyx exclaimed and hastily shut the door. She turned and looked for the lock with which to fasten the door more securely, and thus it was that until she turned back again and stood up, she did not see what mischief was going on at the other side. The floor, to the glory of Yp, was smoking in half a dozen places. Stepping carefully, Alyx picked up the pail of seawater kept always ready in a corner of the cabin and emptied it onto the smoldering floor, but at that instant—so diabolical are the souls of machines—the second front leg of the box followed the first and the brass door burst open, spewing burning coals the length of the cabin. Ordinarily not even a heavy sea could scatter the fire, for the door was too far above the bed on which the wood rested and the monster’s legs were bolted to the floor. But now the boards caught not in half a dozen but in half a hundred places. Alyx shouted for water and grabbed a towel, while a pile of folded blankets against the wall curled and turned black; the cabin was filled with the odor of burning hair. Alyx beat at the blankets and the fire found a cupboard next to them, crept under the door and caught in a sack of sprouting potatoes, which refused to burn. Flour was packed next to them. “Edarra!” yelled Alyx. She overturned a rack of wine, smashing it against the floor regardless of the broken glass; it checked the flames while she beat at the cupboard; then the fire turned and leapt at the opposite wall. It flamed up for an instant in a
straw mat hung against the wall, creeping upward, eating down through the planks of the floor, searching out cracks under the cupboard door, roundabout. The potatoes, dried by the heat, began to wither sullenly; their canvas sacking crumbled and turned black. Edarra had just come tumbling into the cabin, horrified, and Alyx was choking on the smoke of canvas sacking and green, smoking sprouts, when the fire reached the stored flour. There was a concussive bellow and a blast of air that sent Alyx staggering into the stove; white flame billowed from the corner that had held the cupboard. Alyx was burned on one side from knee to ankle and knocked against the wall; she fell, full-length.

  When she came to herself, she was half lying in dirty seawater and the fire was gone. Across the cabin Edarra was struggling with a water demon, stuffing half-burnt blankets and clothes and sacks of potatoes against an incorrigible waterspout that knocked her about and burst into the cabin in erratic gouts, making tides in the water that shifted sluggishly from one side of the floor to the other as the ship rolled.

  “Help me!” she cried. Alyx got up. Shakily she staggered across the cabin and together they leaned their weight on the pile of stuffs jammed into the hole.

  “It’s not big,” gasped the girl, “I made it with a sword. Just under the waterline.”

  “Stay here,” said Alyx. Leaning against the wall, she made her way to the cold firebox. Two bolts held it to the floor. “No good there,” she said. With the same exasperating slowness, she hauled herself up the ladder and stood uncertainly on the deck. She lowered the sail, cutting her fingers, and dragged it to the stern, pushing all loose gear on top of it. Dropping down through the hatch again, she shifted coils of rope and stores of food to the stern; patiently fumbling, she unbolted the firebox from the floor. The waterspout had lessened. Finally, when Alyx had pushed the metal box end over end against the opposite wall of the cabin, the water demon seemed to lose his exuberance. He drooped and almost died. With a letting-out of breath, Edarra released the mass pressed against the hole: blankets, sacks, shoes, potatoes, all slid to the stern. The water stopped. Alyx, who seemed for the first time to feel a brand against the calf of her left leg and needles in her hand where she had burnt herself unbolting the stove, sat leaning against the wall, too weary to move. She saw the cabin through a milky mist. Ballooning and shrinking above her hung Edarra’s face, dirty with charred wood and sea slime; the girl said:

  “What shall I do now?”

  “Nail boards,” said Alyx slowly.

  “Yes, then?” urged the girl.

  “Pitch,” said Alyx. “Bail it out.”

  “You mean the boat will pitch?” said Edarra, frowning in puzzlement. In answer Alyx shook her head and raised one hand out of the water to point to the storage place on deck, but the air drove the needles deeper into her fingers and distracted her mind. She said, “Fix,” and leaned back against the wall, but as she was sitting against it already, her movement only caused her to turn, with a slow, natural easiness, and slide unconscious into the dirty water that ran tidally this way and that within the blackened, sour-reeking, littered cabin.

  Alyx groaned. Behind her eyelids she was reliving one of the small contretemps of her life: lying indoors ill and badly hurt, with the sun rising out of doors, thinking that she was dying and hearing the birds sing. She opened her eyes. The sun shone, the waves sang, there was the little girl watching her. The sun was level with the sea and the first airs of evening stole across the deck.

  Alyx tried to say, “What happened?” and managed only to croak. Edarra sat down, all of a flop.

  “You’re talking!” she exclaimed with vast relief. Alyx stirred, looking about her, tried to rise and thought better of it. She discovered lumps of bandage on her hand and her leg; she picked at them feebly with her free hand, for they struck her somehow as irrelevant. Then she stopped.

  “I’m alive,” she said hoarsely, “for Yp likes to think he looks after me, the bastard.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Edarra, laughing. “My!” She knelt on the deck with her hair streaming behind her like a ship’s figurehead come to life; she said, “I fixed everything. I pulled you up here. I fixed the boat, though I had to hang by my knees. I pitched it.” She exhibited her arms, daubed to the elbow. “Look,” she said. Then she added, with a catch in her voice, “I thought you might die.”

  “I might yet,” said Alyx. The sun dipped into the sea. “Long-leggedy thing,” she said in a hoarse whisper, “get me some food.”

  “Here.” Edarra rummaged for a moment and held out a piece of bread, part of the ragbag loosened on deck during the late catastrophe. The pick-lock ate, lying back. The sun danced up and down in her eyes, above the deck, below the deck, above the deck . . .

  “Creature,” said Alyx, “I had a daughter.”

  “Where is she?” said Edarra.

  Silence.

  “Praying,” said Alyx at last. “Damning me.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Edarra.

  “But you,” said Alyx, “are—” and she stopped blankly. She said, “You—”

  “Me what?” said Edarra.

  “Are here,” said Alyx, and with a bone-cracking yawn, letting the crust fall from her fingers, she fell asleep.

  At length the time came (all things must end and Alyx’s burns had already healed to barely visible scars—one looking closely at her could see many such faint marks on her back, her arms, her sides, the bodily record of the last rather difficult seven years) when Alyx, emptying overboard the breakfast scraps, gave a yell so loud and triumphant that she inadvertently lost hold of the garbage bucket and it fell into the sea.

  “What is it?” said Edarra, startled. Her friend was gripping the rail with both hands and staring over the sea with a look that Edarra did not understand in the least, for Alyx had been closemouthed on some subjects in the girl’s education.

  “I am thinking,” said Alyx.

  “Oh!” shrieked Edarra. “Land! Land!” and she capered about the deck, whirling and clapping her hands. “I can change my dress!” she cried. “Just think! We can eat fresh food! Just think!”

  “I was not,” said Alyx, “thinking about that.” Edarra came up to her and looked curiously into her eyes, which had gone as deep and as gray as the sea on a gray day; she said, “Well, what are you thinking about?”

  “Something not fit for your ears,” said Alyx. The little girl’s eyes narrowed. “Oh,” she said pointedly. Alyx ducked past her for the hatch, but Edarra sprinted ahead and straddled it, arms wide.

  “I want to hear it,” she said.

  “That’s a foolish attitude,” said Alyx. “You’ll lose your balance.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Come, get away.”

  The girl sprang forward like a red-headed fury, seizing her friend by the hair with both hands. “If it’s not fit for my ears, I want to hear it!” she cried.

  Alyx dodged around her and dropped below, to retrieve from storage her severe, decent, formal black clothes, fit for a business call. When she reappeared, tossing the clothes on deck, Edarra had a short sword in her right hand and was guarding the hatch very exuberantly.

  “Don’t be foolish,” said Alyx crossly.

  “I’ll kill you if you don’t tell me,” remarked Edarra.

  “Little one,” said Alyx, “the stain of ideals remains on the imagination long after the ideals themselves vanish. Therefore I will tell you nothing.”

  “Raahh!” said Edarra, in her throat.

  “It wouldn’t be proper,” added Alyx primly. “If you don’t know about it, so much the better,” and she turned away to sort her clothes. Edarra pinked her in a formal, black shoe.

  “Stop it!” snapped Alyx.

  “Never!” cried the girl wildly, her eyes flashing. She lunged and feinted and her friend, standing still, wove (with the injured boot) a net of defense as invisible as the cloak that enveloped Aule the Messenger. Edarra, her chest heaving, managed to say, “I’m tired.”

  “
Then stop,” said Alyx.

  Edarra stopped.

  “Do I remind you of your little baby girl?” she said.

  Alyx said nothing.

  “I’m not a little baby girl,” said Edarra. “I’m eighteen now and I know more than you think. Did I ever tell you about my first suitor and the cook and the cat?”

  “No,” said Alyx, busy sorting.

  “The cook let the cat in,” said Edarra, “though she shouldn’t have, and so when I was sitting on my suitor’s lap and I had one arm around his neck and the other arm on the arm of the chair, he said, ‘Darling, where is your other little hand?”

  “Mm hm,” said Alyx.

  “It was the cat, walking across his lap! But he could only feel one of my hands so he thought—” but here, seeing that Alyx was not listening, Edarra shouted a word used remarkably seldom in Ourdh and for very good reason. Alyx looked up in surprise. Ten feet away (as far away as she could get), Edarra was lying on the planks, sobbing. Alyx went over to her and knelt down, leaning back on her heels. Above, the first sea birds of the trip—sea birds always live near land—circled and cried in a hard, hungry mew like a herd of aerial cats.

  “Someone’s coming,” said Alyx.

  “Don’t care.” This was Edarra on the deck, muffled. Alyx reached out and began to stroke the girl’s disordered hair, braiding it with her fingers, twisting it round her wrist and slipping her hand through it and out again.

  “Someone’s in a fishing smack coming this way,” said Alyx.

  Edarra burst into tears.

  “Now, now, now!” said Alyx. “Why that? Come!” and she tried to lift the girl up, but Edarra held stubbornly to the deck.

  “What’s the matter?” said Alyx.

  “You!” cried Edarra, bouncing bolt upright. “You; you treat me like a baby.”

  “You are a baby,” said Alyx.

  “How’m I ever going to stop if you treat me like one?” shouted the girl. Alyx got up and padded over to her new clothes, her face thoughtful. She slipped into a sleeveless black shift and belted it; it came to just above the knee. Then she took a comb from the pocket and began to comb out her straight, silky black hair. “I was remembering,” she said.