Innocents Aboard

by Gene Wolfe

  Replacing the jar upon her head, the woman nodded, turned without a word, and walked away. She was a very tall woman, both slender and emaciated, and there had been (the traveler thought) a touch of fever in her eyes.

  The camel rose as though it knew what was expected of it, having caught the scent of water; it followed the woman, its head swaying to left and right as it contemplated bleak streets of tombs with arrogant eyes.

  From its back, the traveler regarded them with less hauteur and more curiosity. Some remained sealed—or so it appeared. Others had clearly been broken into, looted, and abandoned. Still others gave evidence of habitation; and at the door of one he saw an old man seated, his dusty cheeks streaked with tears and his raddled face stamped with grief. The woman with the water jar halted to speak to this old man, though the traveler could not hear what she said; the old man nodded in response, his face perhaps a trifle less hopeless than it had been.

  As for the traveler, he was tasting again the water he had drunk, now that it was down. It had no ill taste, and yet it seemed to him that its savor was of time immemorial. By rains and a thousand wild winds I have been distilled from the blood of dragons, the water seemed to say, blood shed before the Lands of Man foundered. Ten thousand years I waited glacier-locked. I have washed the dead faces of a man whose spear was tipped with jasper and a woman whose god was a speaking tree.

  The traveler shook his head to clear it of such fancies. Where there were tombs and men who robbed them, there might be silver and gold besides, necklaces of emeralds and torques starry with opals. The thought revived him more, even, than the water had—for the traveler had been born of woman and suckled at the breast, and like all the breed was in need of money. “I might trade with them,” he told himself, “or if needs must, they might make me a present to go away.” And he patted the fantastically wrought-iron buttplate of the long-barreled jezail that reposed in a fringed rifle-boot to the right of his camel’s saddle.

  Meanwhile the woman with the jar had halted beside a stone trough some distance ahead; she pointed to the trough and emptied her jar into it, then indicated the mouth of a pit some score of strides beyond. “Your camel must drink here,” she said, “for he could not descend our steps. You and I will go down together, if that suits you. I will refill my jar there, and there you may fill the containers you mentioned.”

  The traveler made his camel kneel, which was difficult with water so near, and dismounted. It rose again—tail first after the manner of all camels—as soon as he and his canteens were off its back, and hurried to the trough.

  “Be careful on the steps,” the woman with the jar cautioned the traveler, and she herself led the way down, descending more swiftly than he dared along a steep and narrow stair without a railing that circled the pit.

  He wished to speak to her, to thank her profusely for her generosity and assistance, and to question her regarding the living inhabitants of the lost town of the dead, their wealth, numbers, and weapons; but the terror of the desert well (whose steps had been dished and broken by generations of thirsty feet, and whose twilight closed more securely about him with each such step he dared) held him silent; the capacious leathern flasks with which he was festooned obstructed him, chill vapors from the pool below intoxicated him, and the iron tip of his yataghan’s sheath scraped soil as dry as gunpowder from the wall of earth to his left. He, looking to see whence it came before the light vanished altogether, beheld bones, ancient and blackened with niter.

  The voice of the woman with the jar floated up from depths unguessed. “Here you may fill your containers, with a thousand more and you had them.”

  He clattered and scraped in pursuit of her words, and came to her nearly falling.

  “You will find it a weary climb with your water.” Her dusky wrappings rustled like dead leaves as she knelt; he heard the rush and gurgle of precious water as she refilled her jar.

  He knelt beside her, his knees on cold clay. His questing fingers quickly found the water, and he asked, “Does it never drop lower than this?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Nor rise higher?”

  “No.”

  The traveler sought to recall her face. It had been long, certainly—a high, narrow forehead, close-set eyes yet large eyes, too, and lustrous. Long, flat cheeks, a slit of mouth that betrayed the teeth behind it, small nose, long upper lip, the chin prominent yet rounded. A face, he thought, past the first flush of youth but not altogether uncomely. By no means ugly or even homely, that face.

  “You run a risk,” he said, “going alone into such a place as this with a stranger.” He divested himself of the first of his canteens and opened it. “Understand that you are in no danger from me. I will not force you, nor do you any other harm.”

  “Alas.”

  The traveler thought her joking, although there had been no laughter in her voice; he thrust his canteen beneath the surface, and its burbling there was music beyond the skill of men. “I will have to empty all these into the trough to satisfy my camel,” the traveler told her. “Then I must return to fill them again for myself. You need not accompany me.” Too late it occurred to him that the old man he had seen—or some other—might be looking into his saddlebags at that very moment, that the jezail might be slung across another’s back already, its horn of powder and the little bag of leaden balls bumping some other’s thigh. He shrugged. At present, there was nothing to be done.

  “I will accompany you if you will permit me first to deliver my jar of water to the house in which I dwell,” the woman with the water jar promised. “I will carry three of your containers then, if you yourself will take the two that will remain.”

  “No, no,” the traveler said. “I could not let you bear more weight than I.”

  “You have much else to carry.”

  By this time his eyes had fitted themselves to the darkness of the well; he saw her raise her jar, heavy again with water, and place it upon her head as before. The rectangle of daylight above them seemed very bright but very far as she began the slow ascent of the spiraling stair.

  “Will you stay in our town tonight?”

  “Yes, if you will allow it. I will buy food here, if I can.” Frightful thoughts thronged his mind, but he said bravely, “Your people must have food.”

  “Goats,” she told him. Her head did not turn as she spoke, though one long, graceful arm reached up to her water jar. “We have goats’ flesh to trade, fresh or smoked. Sheep do not thrive here.”

  “I would not expect them to.” He was filling the last of his canteens, and thought privately that nothing could be expected to thrive in such a place. Not sheep, not goats, not people, not even hyenas.

  “We have goat cheese, too. Radishes, and a few other vegetables.”

  He stopped his last canteen, rose, and started after her.

  The woman with the jar said, “I will show you a place where you can stable your camel, and the house where you can stay.”

  “I had hoped to stay in yours,” he told her.

  “It is our law.”

  “I have a tent,” he said.

  “But if you wish it I will be there as well.”

  His camel had emptied the trough. He poured the contents of all five canteens into it, and when the camel had began to drink again knelt to examine the carved and fretted stone-work of the sides and ends. Hooded figures walked with downcast faces there. There were garlands of rue and mandragora, and a god crowned with lightnings wept. “This is—was—a sarcophagus,” he said. The woman with the water jar had already walked too far to hear him, or perhaps it was only that she made no reply, or that he failed to hear such reply as she made. He hurried after her.

  Down one street of tombs and up another, and another, he pursued her, sweating through the dust stirred by his own boots, though the Sun was low and the swift chill of night had a foot in the stirrup.

  At length she halted before a tomb somewhat larger than most. “This is where I live.” She took the wa
ter jar from her head.

  A second woman, somewhat smaller, possibly a year or two younger, appeared in the doorway.

  “This is my sister Ahool.”

  “Welcome to our house,” the sister said. Beyond the dim doorway, the traveler beheld a shelf upon which stood rows of gray-green jars yet sealed.

  “We are not going into the house,” the woman who had carried the jar told her sister. “We will return to the well. Then I shall show him where he can stay. You are not to follow us.”

  The sister eyed the traveler sidelong. “If you wish it,” she said, “I will be there.”

  They went by other streets, again passing the weeping old man. “This is where you will stay,” the woman who had carried the jar told the traveler. “Where you will eat.”

  The weeping old man did not look up at him; yet the traveler sensed that the old man’s attention had flicked his face as one kills a fly with the lash.

  “Has your camel drunk sufficiently?” the woman who had carried the jar asked as they approached the well again.

  “Camels never get enough to drink,” the traveler told her, “but I will water him again in the morning. That is one reason for my staying tonight.”

  “Am I another?” She had descended the first few steps, but she stopped to look back at him, her face twitching.

  “What is one day more or less,” he said, “when a lifetime would be insufficient to drink in your loveliness?”

  Kneeling beside him in the darkness at the water’s edge, she caught his hand. Her own was long and thin and hard, and telling of its bones, clawed, and hot as the hand of a woman who snatches fresh loaves out of the oven. “You fear you will have to take me with you,” she said. “Two would greatly burden your camel.”

  He admitted it.

  “I could run beside your camel like a wolf,” she said, “but you will not have to take me with you.” She steered his hand beneath the stained wrappings she wore until it cupped her breast. That firm breast was febrile and dry as the ashes from a forge, and it seemed almost that embers might linger in it, glowing and snapping.

  As they carried his canteens back to the surface, the sister’s hands caressed his back and slipped under the robe he wore, like two rats fashioned by a potter and hot from the kiln. “Linger,” the sister murmured in his ear. “Linger a moment with me, Traveler. Taste my lips.”

  She remained behind in the darkness when they reached the surface. The Moon had risen, though the Sun had not yet set. The woman who had carried the jar prostrated herself and sang, saying when she rose, “This is our goddess, the white goddess of the bow. She comes to our town often, speaks to us, and gives us life—and the lives that come after life.”

  “In that case, the Sun must be your god,” the traveler said. Privately, he wondered whether she knew her sister had followed them to the well, and how long the sister would remain there.

  “Mahes, the Glaring Lion? Each month, when the bow of our goddess is strongest, we stone him. He is the Slayer of Men.”

  “Then you live in the houses he has provided.”

  After that the woman who had carried the jar said nothing until they came to the tomb before which the old man sat; there she led the way in, and the old man followed them. An old woman lay on the floor of the tomb with her face to the wall; the rasp of her breathing was like the slow cutting of a saw. “Here you will eat,” the woman who had carried the water jar said.

  With a nod, the old man added, “We hope to provide good fare for you.”

  “I must see to my camel,” the traveler told them, for there was no food in evidence.

  Outside again, he returned to the well. The sister had departed, or perhaps merely remained silent and unseen in the darkness there. Shrugging, he led his camel to a piece of level ground a hundred paces or so from the lost town of the dead and tethered it, unloaded it, and erected his tent. The powder in his jezail was fresh, he knew; but he opened the flash pan to make certain that the powder there was fine and dry, resealed the flash pan with wax, and pulled the hammer to full cock.

  Then, slinging his jezail behind his back, he returned to the tomb before which the old man had sat. Both women were seated in the dust before it, and they (or perhaps the old man) had kindled a fire. Inside the old woman lay, the sibilation of her struggle for breath echoing and reechoing in the stone chamber. “I would like to trade for food now,” the traveler announced to the woman who had carried the water jar.

  Her sister said, “You must ask our father,” and both nodded.

  The Sun, which had already crept far down the sky, hid his glaring eye behind the distant tombs on the hillside. Naked boys with sticks drove hurrying goats the length of the street, black, brown, and white. They vanished in the direction of the well.

  The old man returned carrying a pot of blackened copper. From within the tomb he fetched a tripod of iron rods, which he erected over the fire, swinging the pot from a short chain at its apex. “I had hoped to have better fare for you,” he said. “This is but goat’s meat and turnips. Tomorrow we will have something better.”

  The two women nodded solemn confirmation, and the one who had carried the water jar glanced quickly toward the entrance of the tomb.

  “If I can buy some food from you now,” the traveler said, “there will be no need for me to remain here. I can leave in the morning. Your daughter told me that you might have dried meat for sale, or cheeses.”

  “Tomorrow I shall expound our beliefs to you.” The old man might not have heard him. “Are you not a widely traveled man, blessed with an inquiring mind? You cannot but find them fascinating.”

  “I have a little jewelry to trade,” the traveler told him, “but I feel confident you have much more than I, and better jewelry, too. Mine is only brass, but no doubt you have gold and gems, many truly precious things. I have spices as well—some very rare and valuable spices. If you could show me some of your jewelry, perhaps we might strike a bargain we would both consider advantageous.”

  “Spices?” Slowly the old man nodded. “Spices are good.” He sighed. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow we will have better food to give you.”

  Both women turned their faces to the Moon and made it seated bows. Their right hands touched their lips, their left hands their stomachs.

  That night in his tent, the traveler grew concerned about his camel, and after drawing his yataghan and testing the edge with his thumb, ventured out into the Moonlight to see to it. He found it on its feet, regarding him with rolling eyes; and although he poured out a little bag of spelt for it, it would not lower its head to eat.

  When he had returned to the tent and sheathed his yataghan again, he stood perplexed for a moment, considering what else he might do. “I apprehend danger,” he said to himself, “nor is the apprehension mere imagination. Horses, indeed, are creatures much given to fancies. Camels are not. I might saddle and load mine, and ride away—if I were not prevented. But I have ridden far already. My camel is near exhaustion, and so am I.”

  He pictured himself camping anew in the desert, all the weary business of unloading and erecting his tent a second time. By the time the poles were joined, the pegs driven, and the ropes tightened, night would be nearly spent.

  And would it not be as dangerous to cross the desert by night as to remain where he was?

  No, more dangerous. There might be lions or afrits. Wild lamias. Cruel witches and owl-eyed demons. Alfrs, fell spawn of dwarves and gods, and the long-legged hawks, too great to fly, that could outpace the swiftest stallion. Of necessity, he would camp in a waterless place, recalling the well of the lost town of the dead and the little copper pot of goat’s flesh and turnips, and cursing himself for a fool.

  Sitting upon his carpet, he pulled off his high-topped riding boots, rose, untied his sash, laid his yataghan beside his pallet and its piled blankets, removed his trousers, and blew out the lamp. Slipping into his bed, he found himself clasped by a woman so hot and lean and sere that she seemed almost a skeleton cover
ed with parchment and animated by a fire behind her ribs.

  One hand grasped his manhood; the other clasped him to her; she rubbed herself against him, cat-like and frantic, straddled his thigh, bit his shoulders, cheek, and neck. “Now!” Her spittle flew in his face. “I throb like a tymballa. Beat me! I steam, I smoke. Impale me upon your lance. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oooooh!”

  With the last cry she was gone, howling and shrieking, his blankets hurled away and the flap of his tent thrown wide.

  “It was the sister,” the traveler told himself as he wiped a thick and reeking slime from his face, neck, and shoulders. “It can have been no other.”

  These thoughts he repeated to himself more than once that night as he lay listening to the howls and wails of many voices from the lost town of the dead. Trembling as he clasped his yataghan to him, he would repeat over and over that his visitor had been nothing more than the sister of the woman who had carried the water jar, a human woman whom he himself had beheld by daylight.

  That woman and the woman who had carried the jar greeted the traveler the next evening before the tomb in which their father dwelt; and when he had returned their greetings and seated himself between them, the second remarked, “You slept late.”

  “He who cannot sleep by night must needs slumber by day,” he replied.

  The sister said, “Yet you are weary.”

  He nodded. “And you are not?”

  “No.”

  The woman who had carried the jar smiled. “We, too, slept by day. Somewhat, at least.”

  “My camel had broken his tether and fled far from this place, whole leagues into the desert. Did you not know it?”

  Both said that they had not, and the woman who had carried the jar added, “You must tether him more securely tonight.”