Return To The Whorl Part 25

I see I have confused the rings. The one I am wearing is not the one Seawrack gave me, although it resembles it closely. This is Oreb's ring. It seems the stone changes color when it is worn; it was originally much darker, surely. I should go back and line out my mistake, I suppose, but I hate lining things out--it gives the page such an ugly appearance. Besides, to line out is to accept responsibility for the correctness of all that is let stand. To correct that or any other error would be to invite you to ask me (when you read this, as I hope you soon will) why I failed to correct some other. And I cannot correct all or even most of them without tearing the whole account to shreds and starting again. My new account, moreover, would be bound to be worse than this, since I could not prevent myself from attributing to myself knowledge and opinions I did not have at the time the events I recorded occurred. No, there really are such things as honest mistakes; this account is full of them, and I intend to leave it that way.

Having been clubbed during a session of Judge Hamer's court, I found myself again in the abandoned tower in the cliff face in which I had left Jahlee. I was overjoyed at first, thinking it would be easy to find her and return her to her sleeping body.

I searched the tower, discovering many strange devices and a locked door that appeared to lead into the cliff itself, no doubt opening upon some cleft in the rock. Jahlee was nowhere to be found, however, and at last I was forced to admit that during the time she had been alone she had left the tower, abandoning hope of rescue and flying out the circular port--I described it a good deal earlier--and down to the fog-shrouded swamps in which she was born.

I have been talking with Oreb, who has recovered himself somewhat after his exhausting trip. (Yesterday he seemed very tired and weak, and tucked his head under his wing as soon as he had been fed.) I questioned him closely about my letter.

"Bird take."

"I'm well aware that you took it, Oreb. But did you take it to Nettle? Did you deliver it as I asked?"

"Yes, yes! Take girl. Girl cry."

"I see." I rose and paced the room for some while, pausing at one window or another--there are seven in all--to peer between the leading and the bull's-eye at the center of each diamond-shaped pane of bluish gla.s.s. This house is admirably situated atop a small hill and commands a fine view of Dorp; but I could not have told you what I had seen five seconds after I saw it. If the Sun Street Quarter as it was before the fire had been re-created there, I doubt that I would have noticed.

Oreb was hopping back and forth, snapping his bill and whistling softly in the way that betokens nervousness; and at last I turned back to him. "What did she tell you to tell me, Oreb? There must have been something."

"No tell."

"Nothing? Surely she said something--she must have. Are you saying she sent you back without even a word?"

"No tell," he insisted.

"This is Nettle we're talking about? The woman in the log house at the southern end of Lizard? Near the tail?"

"Yes, yes." He bobbed affirmation. I described her, and he repeated, "Yes, yes."

"Was it day or night when you found her, Oreb? Do you remember?"

"Sun s.h.i.+ne."

"Day then. What was she doing? I mean, before you gave her my letter."

"Look sea."

" 'Look see'? At what was she looking?"

"Look wet. Big wet. Look sea."

"Ah, I see--I mean I understand. Was she looking out the window, or was she standing on the beach?" Foolish as it may seem, these details were important to me. I wanted very much to picture her as she had been when Oreb arrived.

"No stand. Girl sit."

"She was sitting on the beach? Is that what you're saying? On the s.h.i.+ngle?" When we were much younger, we used to spread a blanket there and sit on it to look at the stars; but we had not done that for a long time.

"Chair sit!" He was growing impatient.

"So she'd carried a chair out of the house, and was sitting in it and staring out to sea. I suppose it's natural enough--both Sinew and I left by boat. Naturally she would expect us to return the same way. Was anyone with her, Oreb?"

"No, no."

"She was alone? There was n.o.body with her?"

He picked up my word, as he often does. "n.o.body."

"I don't suppose you landed on her shoulder, so how did you deliver it? Did you talk to her first--tell her who you were, and who I am?"

Oreb looked thoughtful, c.o.c.king his head to one side and then to the other, bright black eyes half closed.

"It's not important, I suppose. Do you recall what she said to you?"

"Bird drop!"

"You flew over her and dropped my letter? Not into the sea, I hope."

"Yes, yes! No wet."

"In any event, she got my letter and read it. She must have, because you said she cried."

"Yes, yes."

"But then, Oreb," I shook my finger at him, "she must surely have given you some reply. You didn't leave as soon as you had delivered my letter, did you? You must have been tired, and though I suppose you could have gotten a drink from the stream that turns our mill, I'd expect you to ask her for food."

"Fish heads."

"Yes, exactly like that."

"Bird say. Fish heads?"

I nodded. "She was always very generous, and she must surely have recalled the earlier Oreb, Silk's pet."

He flew to the window and tapped one of the panes, a sign that he wanted to leave. "Bye-bye!"

"If you wish it." I unfastened the latch and pushed back the cas.e.m.e.nt for him. "But it's cold out, so be careful."

"Girl write. Give bird." Then he was gone.

Now I should complete my account of my search for Jahlee. When I had satisfied myself that she was no longer in the tower where I had left her, I went to the circular opening in the tower wall, telling myself that I was here only in spirit, and that spirits could not be harmed by a fall; yet I could not forget what had happened to the Duko on the Red Sun Whorl, and the mindless thing we awakened when we returned to Blue.

(Another mistake. I should have written spiritless, spiritless, or some such. The Duko's mind remained, at least in some sense. It was the thing that hopes and dreams that had gone forever. I will not line it out, although I am tempted.) or some such. The Duko's mind remained, at least in some sense. It was the thing that hopes and dreams that had gone forever. I will not line it out, although I am tempted.) When men and women die, their spirits may go to Mainframe--so we once believed. Perhaps the Outsider or some other G.o.d sends his servants to enlist them, as they taught in Blanko. But when a man's spirit dies, that is the death beyond death.

A dozen times I told myself to jump, that no harm could come to me, and a dozen times I held back. I have written that I was afraid because of what had befallen Duko Rigoglio; but the truth is that I was afraid first, and only later discovered the reason for my fear--or if not the true reason, a rationale to justify it. Jahlee had flown, I told myself, but I could not.

As soon as my mind had formed the words, I realized they were mistaken; here, Jahlee had not been an inhuma's imitation of a human being but an actual human being, and as such she could no more have flown than I. It was possible, of course, that she had jumped--I felt certain that her fear of heights would be much less than mine.

That recalled the white-headed one, whose clipped wings had prevented him from flying away. He had tried to fly when he and Silk had fought on Blood's roof, and had fallen to his death. Standing in the circular opening I actually pushed back my sleeve to look for the scars his beak had left on Silk's arm. Needless to say, they were not there--it was Silk, not I, who fought the white-headed one, just as it was Silk who killed Blood when Blood severed his mother's arm, no matter how vividly I imagined either scene.

Frightening as it had been to stand in the opening looking down at the jungle so far below, the climb on the cliff face was worse because it took so much longer. I had thought at first to climb out the aperture itself, but I saw at once that the gray stone wall of the tower was too smooth for me to climb down. I might have done it as a boy, or Silk, who told me once that he could climb like a monkey when he was younger--but I might have fallen to my death as well. I went down toward the base of the tower, and when I judged that I was at the bottom of the outer wall, I tried to tear aside the stones, using a long pointed tool I discovered in one of the workshops. I failed, but after some time shut my eyes and leaned against the wall, telling myself that I must somehow do this, and felt it soften behind me.

The cliff face was rough enough that it seemed possible I might descend in that way. I was making good progress--or so I thought--when I risked a look below me.

It was an extremely foolish thing to do. The rolling green plain that was in fact the tops of trees taller than the tower seemed every bit as remote as it had from the aperture in the tower wall, and the dizzying void that separated me from it was terrifying. I shut my eyes and clung desperately to the stone outcrop I held, telling myself again and again that when I opened them I must not look down.

In a minute or two I tried it, but they were drawn inexorably to that plain of green. I cannot say I froze again, because I had never moved; but motion seemed more impossible than ever.

A dot appeared there, and grew. At first I thought it smoke--that someone far below the plain of leaves had made a fire of wet wood, as we had done so often there; I watched it without seeing it, as a man about to be executed watches the firing squad but sees only the muzzles of the slug guns. Around and up they swirled, drifting (as it seemed) toward me. For a moment or two I thought vaguely that the whole wet and rotting whorl had been set ablaze and was going up in smoke. Then I realized what it was I saw, and began to climb, hoping to regain the safety of the tower.

I had not gotten far before they caught up with me. Some time ago I described the way in which the inhumi who had fought for me in the war with Han laid siege to us when Evensong and I tried to escape down the Nadi. That was bad, and was made worse by the darkness. This was much worse, and was made worse still by the clear daylight that bathed me and the thousands of inhumi. Most were mere animals, like reptilian bats with long fangs and hideous snarling faces. But there were some among them whose parents had fed on human blood, naked and starved-looking, with glittering eyes in faces like our own, trailing legs no bigger than a child's, and hands and arms flattened and broadened into wings. These spoke to me and to one another, cruel words and words of a pretended kindness that was worse than cruelty--words that will haunt my dreams for as long as death spares me. Their wings buffeted my face as I climbed, and the teeth through which they draw blood were plunged into my neck and arms, my back and legs until my hands and feet were slippery with blood, although I defended myself when I had an arm or leg free with which to do it. How long the climb lasted, I cannot say--no doubt it seemed much longer than it was, and although there were times when I was forced to hoist myself from one handhold to the next, there were others when I could scramble up steep slopes of scree, in considerable danger that the whole ma.s.s might slide, but making rapid progress just the same.

Eventually I came to realize that in my haste to escape I had missed the tower, and was no longer below it but above it. I continued to climb just the same, feeling certain that a search for the tower (I did not know whether it was to my right or left) would surely doom me. At the top of the cliff, I hoped to find some level ground where I might beat my tormentors off, recalling that although numerous, they had refrained from a direct attack on Evensong and me as long as we remained awake.

That reminded me of the azoth at last, and the azoth of the sword that I had re-created for myself on the Red Sun Whorl, the sword I had flung to the wretched omophagist in the lion pit--the sword that had melted in his hands. I shaped a needler for myself then, and when it felt solid in my grasp fired again and again at the inhumi.

The effects were extraordinary. Some tumbled out of the air and fell to their deaths. Some merely seemed frightened, conscious that they had been injured in some way, wounded but bewildered as to the nature of the wound. Some seemed wholly proof against its needles and prosecuted their attacks until I actually clubbed them with it. If these had rushed me en ma.s.se, I would have fallen and been killed, without doubt; but it was my blood they wanted, not my life, and my mangled corpse at the bottom of the cliff could have supplied very little of it. That saved me.

Here I am tempted to write that the cliff-top appeared suddenly above me, for that was how it seemed to me. The truth, of course, was considerably more prosaic--I had been inching toward it without knowing what the distance was, had climbed altogether about three times the height of the tower, and so had reached it. I do not believe I could have done it in the body that lay sprawled on the floor of Judge Hamer's sellaria. Fortunately, I did not have to; the weight I lifted--clawing, sometimes, with bleeding fingers at the red rock-face--although it felt real, was substantially less than my true weight.

To have attained the top was enough at first. I lay on my back gasping and shuddering, firing the needler at any inhumi who came too near. A woman spoke. I supposed that it was one of the inhumi who had taunted me with lies during my climb, and paid little attention. Then Jahlee was bending over me, her sorrel hair brus.h.i.+ng my cheek and her sweet and beautiful face peering into mine. "You came back! I'd given up."

"I was imprisoned," I told her. "We were already under arrest when you left, remember?" Aware that the inhumi were no longer attacking, I sat up with her a.s.sistance.

A new voice asked, "Is this your male half, Misted One? His blood does not fill our bellies." The speaker was an inhumu, in form a dwarfish, hairless, emaciated man.

Jahlee nodded. "This is my father."

He began to speak again; but I cannot recall the words; there were only two or three at most. I shot him, my needle piercing the center of his chest, and watched him die.

"Why did you do that?" Jahlee was aghast.

"I have had a sharp reminder of what we are, and what they are."

"These . . . They wors.h.i.+p me, Rajan. They won't use the word, but that's what it is. We . . . They bring me food I can't eat. Children, and all the while I know my body's starving up there."

I was about to ask what became of the children whose blood she was unable to drink (although I was afraid I knew) when my attention was drawn to a new figure, tall and tightly wrapped in a colorless cloak, approaching us with stiff, bird-like strides. Seeing him, I realized that what I had taken to be a large black boulder was in fact a squat domed building without windows.

Jahlee was telling me (no doubt correctly) that I should not have killed her friend. I said, "Will you forgive me? I've forgiven you a great deal, and made you my daughter though you were once my slave."

It has been days since I wrote. I have been very remiss, but it has been a busy time. We are about to leave. I will pa.s.s over the Neighbor--what we said will quickly become apparent. Tomorrow we sail for home; if I wish to record my trial at all, I had better do it today.

It was held in what is called the Palace of Justice, a big, solidly constructed building with courtrooms for all five judges. I had been taken from Aanvagen's house several hours before and locked in a cell in the back of the building. Oreb visited me there, slipping between the bars on my window without difficulty, and on his second visit brought Babbie.

It was very good to see him again. "You've grown," I said. "Why, just look at you! You were no bigger than a big dog when I freed you."

Are you really my old master? (This was said with Babbie's eyes; it is the only way he has of talking, but generally works well enough.) I put my arm through the bars, and he stood on his four hind legs, with all four forelegs braced against the wall, and snuffled my fingers. His coat--cannot call it fur--was as stiff as the bristles of a hairbrush.

Yes! Yes, you are!

"I am indeed, and very glad to see you, Babbie. I need your help badly. Will you help me? It may be dangerous."

"Bird help!"

I nodded. "You've been of great help already, and I must ask more of you. You must help Babbie find the courtroom when they take me away. It will be in this building, in front."

"Bird find!"

He did, too.

Having written about Oreb, I could not resist the impulse to open the window in the hope that he might have returned. He was not there. I thrust my head out and saw several birds, but he was not among them.

I was brought into the courtroom with manacles on my wrists, which they seemed to think would shame me. I felt no shame, but a sort of urgent joy. Either we would succeed and my troubles here would be ended (as they have been, only to be succeeded by others) or we would fail and I, at least, would be killed. Very likely my daughter and both sons would be killed as well--but then, death waits for all of us, not that I wished to see them die; it was very good indeed to find all three waiting in the courtroom with my advocate.

Now that I have mentioned him, I realize I should have written about him before beginning this description of my trial, but it is too late. His name is Vent, and he is middle-aged, bald, and paunchy. I have appointed him a judge.

He rose to greet me, and Hoof and Hide stood too. Then Hamer entered, robed in black like an augur, and we all had to stand. It was only then, I believe, that I realized how full the courtroom was, and from the noise that penetrated its ma.s.sive doors that there was a crowd outside clamoring to get in as well. Certainly it was then that Cijfer caught my eye, pointing to the red-faced man with her and mouthing words I did not understand. She looked very happy and almost beside herself with excitement, so that I a.s.sumed there was good news of some kind. I smiled at her and tried to look as confident as I could while puzzling over the ident.i.ty of the red-faced man, whom I felt sure I should recognize.

10.

THROUGH Q QUADRIFONS' D DOOR.

P ig stopped whistling to say, "Nae sae far noo, bucky. Lookin' forward ter h'it?" ig stopped whistling to say, "Nae sae far noo, bucky. Lookin' forward ter h'it?"

"To revisiting the city in which I was born?" (By an effort he had avoided the word seeing. seeing.) "To tell the truth, I dread it. It will have changed, and not for the better I'm afraid. It can scarcely be for the better. Hound, you said that Silk is no longer calde--"

"Good Silk!" Oreb, who had been riding atop the second pack-donkey, flew to his shoulder, a sudden blossoming of black and scarlet in the bright suns.h.i.+ne.

"So who is?"

"Who's calde now?" From his seat on the lead donkey, Hound looked over his shoulder. "General Mint's husband. His name's Bison. Calde Bison."

"That's good. I know him slightly."

"You're going to talk to him?"

Oreb muttered, "Talk Silk."