In Green's Jungles

5 In Green's Jungle

Atteno the stationer has let me stay in his shop again tonight, and furnished me with a pallet he bought today for my sake, a pillow, sheets, and three blankets; but I slept so much yesterday (in a barrel in the alley when the shop was open) that I find I am unable to get to sleep tonight. Unable as yet, I should write.

So here I sit in my usual place in the shopwindow, burning Atteno's oil in his lamp and writing on paper I have appropriated from him, having used up all he gave me earlier while I finished describing Inclito's dinner of night-before-last. It was the most I have ever written in a single sitting, to the best of my memory. Even when my wife and I were composing our book about Silk, I never wrote so long a time without some sort of break or interruption, or wrote so much.

Not a lot has happened since Oreb burst in upon us, although I have received two letters. My friend the shopkeeper (I have got to find some way to repay him for the paper I have taken) was delighted. "People of quality write letters, " he declared as he endeavored to conceal his pleasure. "It's the mark of quality, and a good education." No one in Blanko can set pen to paper without putting the little squares of silver they term "cardbits" here into his pocket, and he is very conscious of it. Since I began this rambling account of my journey back to the Whorl by copying what I remembered of the letter from Pajarocu into it, I will copy them out here as well.

Two young men with huge dogs on leashes just walked past the shop; seeing me behind these panes of bull's-eye glass, they saluted. They had slug guns slung across their backs in the fashion I saw our troopers in Gaon use. I returned their salutes-and at once, without the mumbling of a single spell or the offering of some poor, sad monkey's life to Thelxiepeia, I was fifteen again, and by no means the youngest of General Mint's Volunteers. Once a trooper, always a trooper. No doubt Spider felt the same way, or much more so. We ought to have put something of that in our book, but it is too late now.

War looms-not only for Blanko, but for me. To give myself due credit, I never imagined that by leaving Evensong and her pretty little boat on the Nadi I would throw them off indefinitely. A week? Ten days, perhaps, although it seemed much longer. Very well, I have fought them before, and in place of a slug gun and the black-bladed sword I have Hyacinth's azoth. Let them beware.

I have drawn the three whorls just as I used to in Gaon. Not because I have been away, or slept, or made love to any woman. No, merely because I ceased writing for an hour or so to play with Oreb and wrestle my conscience. But midnight has come and gone-I heard the clocks strike.

How much do I owe my devil-son? I swore I would not tell, and I will not. But what constitutes telling? If I were to take down the big bar on the door and go out into the street, stop a passerby, and explain everything to him as I would like to, that would be telling beyond all doubt. But what if I were to write it here? Who would ever read it?

Fava's letter was badly folded and sealed with a blurred impression of a flower. If this were New Viron, it would surely be her name-flower. Here I cannot say. A wide-petaled, short-stemmed flower badly stamped into pink wax. She did not trust poor Mora to do it for her, clearly.

She is a fellow-pupil at Mora's palaestra, they say, and a very bright one. No doubt she is, but she cannot do well in penmanship, unless she has discovered some cheat beyond my imagining. Both of them wear masks for Mora's family, I believe: Fava is by definition brilliant in all of their classes, and Mora is by definition slow or worse. But it cannot be that simple. Mora would write a small hand, very neat, if I am any judge of women's characters.

She came to the barrel in which I slept in a simple gown, such as she must wear to her palaestra; and yet she wore such small and childish jewelry as she had, and scent, too. What ran through her head as she thus dressed herself to visit me? I can only guess.

First the gown. It was a palaestra day, and she was not quite sure that she could nerve herself to miss her classes. Alternately, she hoped to find me quickly and come late to palaestra. She would merely have been marked tardy in that case, perhaps.

Perhaps. It was a favorite word of Patera Silk's, and I try to avoid it for that reason. What right have I (I ask myself) to Silk's words? Yet I have striven to pattern myself on him in many other ways, most of all in his way of thinking. Can I think like Silk without employing the words he did? If in fact I thought more like Silk, I would have thought of that much sooner. It is nothing to say, "I will be logical." It is everything to be logical, provided that I act from good motives.

Good motives cannot excuse bad actions, as I told Mora. I was stern-I hope not too stern. I know what she is going through, poor child.

And she is a child. "I won't ask you to disrobe, " I said, "because it doesn't matter whether I know. You'll know if I'm right, and that's enough."

She nodded solemnly, sitting cross-legged on the bare ground in front of my barrel, with her clean blue gown spread over her knees. Several persons saw us talking there. What must they have thought?

"The time of maturity varies between individuals. For a few it may be as early as eleven, and there are a few for whom it comes after eighteen. In general, the larger the individual the slower the onset."

I paused to let that sink in.

"In speaking of the size of the individual, I mean weight as well as stature. You are of large stature. You are aware of it, from what I've seen." (I dodged the word perhaps.) "You may even be too acutely aware of it. You are also fleshy, as I am. I try to fight it, though for other reasons. I am not telling you that you must fight it, too. If you are satisfied-"

She shook her head.

"Then you can correct it. If you succeed, you will be a woman sooner. Talk to your grandmother about what it means to be a woman. There will be a flow of blood, and if you are not prepared you may find it deeply unsettling."

She nodded. "Do you think someday I might…?" She dropped her gaze to the ground between us.

"Good girl!" Oreb assured me.

"You're still too young to be concerned with marriage, " I told her. "But yes, I do."

She looked up, and her shy smile was gold.

"Mora, you envy beautiful women. That is natural, but-"

"Like Fava."

"Fava is not a beautiful woman, or even a pretty girl, which is what she pretends to be. You and I know what Fava is."

I waited for her to protest. When she did not, I said, "It is only natural for you to envy them. It's foolish, but it does no harm. You must be careful, however, that your envy does not turn to hatred."

She nodded, her face serious. "I'll try."

"Bear in mind always that they may envy you."

"My family, you mean. My father." Her voice held an edge of bitterness.

"You believe that you would be happier if your father were not rich, if you were not his only child, and if he did not love you as he does. Believe me, Mora, you are wrong."

"He wants you to stay with us."

"I know. He pressed me to last night."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because I wasn't sure I would be welcome."

"Grandmother thinks you're wonderful! Probably you didn't see it, but she kept telling Papa to make you stay, the way she looked at him and the things she said."

"I did see it, Mora. And hear it, too. It wasn't your grandmother's welcome that concerned me."

She was baffled. "Papa's going to write you a letter. He said so."

"I would prefer one from you."

The solemn nod again. "When I get back home."

"Fava will try to dissuade you, I feel sure."

"I won't tell her." She fell silent, then burst out, "They'll burn her if they find out."

I tried to make my voice noncommittal. "In that case, she is foolish to remain."

"Are you going to tell Papa? He'll burn her himself. He hates them."

"Most people do. I may tell him, or I may not. Certainly I won't unless I find it necessary."

"Don't you hate them, too?" Beneath their heavy, dark brows her eyes were puzzled.

"No, " I said. "Mora, I have been to Green, and I have come back. I know that's hard for you to credit, but it is the truth. I have."

Trying to be helpful, Oreb added, "Good Silk!"

She ignored him. "They say the inhumi kill everybody that goes there."

"I know they do. They're wrong. Haven't you asked her about it?"

Mora's voice fell to a whisper. "We don't talk about that."

"You don't talk about her real nature?"

Mora shook her head, unwilling to meet my eyes.

"How is it that you know?"

"I guessed."

"Have you ever seen her when she wasn't-Fava?"

Mora's "No" was whispered, too. Much louder: "I don't want to. "

"I don't blame you. Mora, there was an inhumu who was a son to me. Can you believe that?"

"No, " she repeated.

"That, too, is the truth. For a long while you did not so much as suspect what Fava was, and for still longer you must have been unsure. It wasn't like that for me. I was in real and imminent danger of death, and he helped me and let me see him as he was. I was so badly frightened that it did not seem strange to me."

"I was in trouble, too."

"I know you were, and that's one reason I don't want Fava burned. One of many."

"It's hard for me to think of you being afraid of anything. Were you really?"

I cast my mind back to the pit; it seemed very long ago. "I was resigned to death by then, I believe. I had lost hope, or almost lost it, yet I was very frightened."

"You said I had to make her go away."

I nodded.

"But this one helped you."

I nodded again. "Then and afterward. He stayed with me, you see. With us. Others saw him as a boy about your age, Mora. I saw the inhumu. That was a part of our agreement-that he would not deceive me as he deceived others. When my real son and I went aboard the lander that would carry us to Green, he boarded it too. I hated him then, just as I had come to hate him while we were on my sloop. Brave men taunt the things they fear, Mora, and he did too."

"She's not afraid of me."

"She should be. You said that if you told your father, he would have her burned alive."

"He'd burn her himself, only she knows I won't. How did you find out?"

"From the story she told, first of all. There was an undercurrent in it, a stream of things left unsaid. Your father sensed it just as I did, though he may not have been conscious of it. He was puzzled because the little boy in the story did not go back to his family, remember?"

Mora nodded.

"We were supposed to believe he was afraid that the mother who had set out to kill him in her desperation would try to kill him again. That didn't ring true, and your father rejected it out of hand, as I did. A boy too young to know his own name could have had only the vaguest notion of his mother's intention, and would have forgotten the entire incident in a day or two. Then Fava suggested that he got away from the Vanished People, who periodically recaptured him. That was ridiculous and made the real answer obvious, as ridiculous solutions frequently do."

Mora nodded again.

"What was the real answer? I won't tell you, Mora. You have to tell me."

Tears coursed down the big, rounded cheeks. "I don't think it happened at all."

Oreb muttered, "Girl cry."

"I think Fava made it up!"

We sat in silence for some time after that. At last I said, "You have a good mind, Mora, and when someone has a good mind it can be painful not to use it."

She sobbed openly then, into her hands at first and afterward into a clean handkerchief, far too small, that she took from a pocket of her gown. When her shoulders no longer heaved, I said, "Krait, the inhumu I loved as a son, told me once that we are their cattle. It's not true, but on Green they have tried to make it true. It doesn't work very well. We milk our cattle, and butcher them when it suits us. But we don't milk them to death in our greed. Last night someone asked why I told the story I did."

"It was Fava." Mora wiped her face with her handkerchief, and when that proved ineffectual, with her sleeve. "You told it so she'd know you knew."

"I did not, because I wasn't certain then. I told it-in part, at least-to find out whether anyone else suspected Fava as I did."

Mora shook her head.

"You're right. No one did. Your expressions told me that you knew and that Fava knew you did, and that neither your father nor your grandmother, whom your friend Fava has been slowly killing, suspected her of being what we know she is."

Mora had whispered earlier. This time her voice was softer than a whisper, so soft that I cannot be certain that I heard her correctly. I believe that she was saying, "I'll be all alone now."

I tried to be as gentle as I could. "There are much worse things than being alone, Mora. You're living through one of them at this moment."

Having written that, it occurs to me that this was why the Outsider sent the leatherskin when I was alone on the sloop and prayed for company. He wished me to learn that loneliness is not the worst evil, so I might teach it to Mora.

How lonely it must be to be a god!

When Krait lay dying in the jungle, I offered my arm, telling him that he could have my blood if it would strengthen him, or even if it would just make death easier.

"I never fed from you."

"I know." My eyes were as full of tears then as poor Mora's wen – this afternoon. I felt myself an utter fool.

"It would make you weak, " he told me, "without making me stronger."

Then I remembered that Quetzal had been full of blood when he had been shot by Siyuf's troopers, but had died just the same about two days later.

"Do you know why we drink blood, Horn?"

"You must eat." That, at least, is what I now believe that I said, with something about the short, digestive tract. I may also have said that every living creature must eat something, even if it is no more than air and sunshine. I believe I did.

"On the night we met, I drank your hus's blood."

"I remember."

"It made a beast of me until I fed again. We feed to share your lives, to feel as you feel."

"Then feed of me, " I said, and I offered my arm as before.

The tips of his fingers slid along its skin, leaving thin red lines that wept tears of blood. "There's another reason. Swear. Swear now that if I tell you, you'll never tell anybody else."

I promised I would not. I am not sure now just what it was I said.

"You've got to swear… "

I leaned closer to hear him, my ear at his mouth.

"Because I have to tell you, Father, so I can die. Swear."

And I did. It was the oath that Silk had taught me aboard the airship. I will not set it down.

Krait told me, and we talked together until I understood the secret and what had happened almost twenty years ago; then Krait, seeing that I understood everything, clasped my hand and begged my blessing before he died; and I blessed him. I recall his face very clearly; it was as though Sinew himself were dying, forced by some mad god to wear a serpent mask. I saw the serpent face, but I sensed the human face behind it.

At the moment of death, it seemed to me that the mighty trees bent over Krait as I did-that he was in some sense their son as well as in some sense mine. I was conscious of their trailing lianas as female presences, wicked women in green gowns with gray and purple moths upon their brown shoulders and orchids flaming in their hair. Looking up in wonder, I saw only vines and flowers, and heard only the mournful voices of the brilliantly colored birds that glide from tree to tree; but the moment that I looked down at Krait again the green-gowned women and the brutal giants who supported them returned, mourners sharing my sorrow.

If ever you read this, Sinew, you will not believe it, I know. You have nothing but contempt for impressions at odds with what you consider simple truth. But my truth is not yours any more than your mother's is. Once I watched a mouse scurry across the floor of a room in the palace I occupied as Rajan of Gaon. To the mouse, that room with its cushions, thick carpets, and ivory-inlaid table was a wilderness, a jungle. It may be that as Krait lay dying the Outsider permitted me to share Krait's thoughts to some degree, and to see Green's jungle as Krait himself did.

To see it as our blood allowed him to see it.

That insight was never again as strong as at the moment of his death, but it never left me entirely as long as I remained on Green. You feared that jungle, I know; so did I at times. Yet what a beautiful place it was, with its capes of moss and trickling waters! The boles of the great trees stood like columns-but what architect could give us columns to stand as those trees do in their millions of millions, individual and despotic, ancient and majestic?

After writing that last, I blew out the lamp, let Oreb fly and re closed the window, and slept for a few hours. Now it is morning. Early morning, I believe, since the shopkeeper has not yet come down. Dawn's clear, cool light fills the street outside. I would take up my staff and stroll the avenues of Blanko now if I could, but I would have to leave the shop unlocked, which would be a poor return for the owner's kindness; so I have taken up my pen instead.

Wait while I reread what I wrote last night.

There are various matters left unfinished, I see-most obviously, the letters; it was late and I was tired. Here they are. Inclito writes large, his broad-nibbed quill swooping and slashing as it lays a thick trail of jet-black ink.

Incanto, My Dear Brother-

You did not believe me when I told you I want you to stay with us. Mother says for me to urge you. Is this urging enough?

Stay with us. I say it, and so does she. She has prepared a room for you with her own hands. She will drive me mad.

So pack your things and come-

Anyone in town will bring you, or lend you a horse.

If you are not here by afternoon, I will come after you myself.

Inclito

Fava writes a shaky scrawl, some words too distorted almost for me to make out.

To Incanto at the stationer's on Water Street

Rajan, What I said last night is true this morning. You know me better than anyone, that is why I hate to quarrel with you. Wait outside the academy this afternoon and tell me that we are friends. I will be so happy!!! If you like, you could even ride out to Mora's with us, there is plenty of room and Inclito and Salica will be delighted, and you could reassure yourself. She is following all of your instructions, but there is no need of it. Do you understand me, Rajan?

Your loyal friend forever, Fava

I have given a good deal of my conversation with Mora, but in bits and pieces; I had to do it like that because some of it was so personal (I mean, for her) that it would have been wrong for me to write it down. Just the same, it is choppier than it had to be, and there are things I should have set down that I have left out.

She said, "Grandmother goes on and on about what a miserable thing marriage is and how terrible it was for her. She's been married five times and outlived all her husbands. Papa's father wasn't even the last one. To hear her tell it, it's awful being married and being widowed is worse, and I know she's saying all that because she thinks I'll never be married and she doesn't want me unhappy. But I'm unhappy anyway."

I told her, "Married couples must endure a great deal of unhappiness, Mora. So do single people. There is also a great deal of happiness in both states.

That being so, what is the point of blaming the married state or the unmarried state? Or praising either one?" As I spoke, I thought of Maytera Mint; but I said nothing about her.

"I want to get married."

"Do you, Mora? Really?"

"Yes, as soon as I can. I want somebody who will love me always."

"Good girl, " Oreb remarked.

"Your father and grandmother love you, but you blame them for your unhappiness."

She was silent for some time after I said that; I could see that she was thinking, and I let the silence grow.

"If I were more like the other girls, the town girls, they'd like me more."

"Or less. If you lived here in town, as they do, your size and strength, your slow speech and quick mind, and the strong, sensual face that you will possess when you are a woman would affront them at every turning. Your father likes me, and because he does, all the townsfolk treat me with respect. Would I be respected as much if I had been born three streets from here?"

She shook her head.

"You don't feel that life has treated you fairly. That is not a question. Everything you've said this morning confirms it. Your mother died while you were still an infant, I know, and that is hard, very hard. I sympathize with you deeply and sincerely because of it. But in every other respect your lot is far above the average."

"I don't think so!"

"Naturally you don't. Almost no one does. What would be fair, Mora?"

"For everyone to be even."

"Everyone is. Listen carefully, please. If you won't listen now, you may as well go. Last night someone told me that you could outrun all the other girls, that when you run races at your palaestra you always win. I suppose that it was Fava-"

"Bad thing!" (This from Oreb.)

"Who must run very poorly."

Mora said, "She doesn't run at all. There's something the matter with her legs, so she's excused."

"Are the races fair, and do you win them?"

Mora nodded.

"What makes them fair?"

"Everybody starts even."

"But some girls can run faster than the others, so they're bound to win. Don't you see how unfair that must seem to the losers? Mora, there is only one rule in life, and it applies to everyone equally-to me, to you, to all the girls at your palaestra, and even to Fava. It is that each of us is entitled to use everything we are given. Your father was given size and strength, and a good mind. He used them, as he was entitled to, and if anyone is the worse for it, he has no right to complain; your father played by the rule."

"Papa helps poor people."

"Good man!"

I nodded. "That doesn't surprise me. Some of them resent it, but he helps them anyway."

Her eyes opened a trifle wider. "How did you know that?"

"When some people are in pain, they strike out at any target within their reach, that's all. If you haven't learned it yet, you'll learn it soon. We all do."

"Have I been doing that?"

"That is for you to decide. I have been a judge, Mora, but I am not a judge here. Before I talk to you seriously-and I have serious things to say to you-I want you to consider this: Suppose that instead of being as you are, you were the small and pretty girl whom Fava appears to be. Don't you think it's possible that your father might doubt that you were really his? And that your life would be a great deal less happy if he did?"

She was silent again, the large, plump hands motionless in her lap, her head bowed. At last she said, "I never thought of it."

"You will think about it now, I know."

To say what I wanted to say next was to risk the life of the girl before me, and I knew it; I waited until I felt certain I could suppress the tremor in my voice.

"Mora, I used to know a woman named Scleroderma. She was quite short. You are already much taller than she was. She was also fat, a great deal fatter than you are, and not at all good-looking. People made jokes about her, and she laughed the loudest at them, and made jokes about herself-about others, too, to tell you the truth. All of us thought that she was very funny, and most of us liked her and felt a little superior to her."

"I'd feel sorry for her, " Mora said.

"Perhaps you would. War came, and Scleroderma acquired a needier. I don't know how, and it doesn't matter. She did. And when we who had lived in the Sun Street Quarter had to fight, Scleroderma fought like a trooper. It isn't good for a trooper to be over forty, or short, or fat. It isn't good at all, and she was all of those things; but she fought like a trooper just the same."

As I said that, something came into Mora's eyes that told me I was in fact running the risk I feared.

"There were many women with us who had known her all their lives, and some of them were shamed into fighting too, though none of the rest showed her determined courage. I was almost precisely as old as you are when all this happened, and there was a girl named Nettle there with me who was my own age. Nettle had fought earlier-we both had-and she said then what both of us felt, which was that General Mint might easily have put Scleroderma in command of fifty or a hundred troopers."

"Women don't fight here, " Mora told me, "or not very much."

I smiled. "They fight only with their husbands, you mean. I know they must, because women everywhere do that. Scleroderma did more than fight, though I have mentioned the fighting first because it was what she did first. The troopers we were fighting were brave and well trained. They had slug guns, and some had armor. It wasn't long before some of us were dead and many of us were wounded. It was Scleroderma who went for our wounded under fire and bandaged their wounds, and carried or dragged them to a safe place. I know that very well, Mora, because I was one of the wounded she rescued."

"I'd like to meet her."

"We will both meet her in time, I hope. She is dead now. But long after that fighting was over, when we were here on Blue and I helped her and her husband build their new house, she told me her secret. It's a simple one, but if you'll make it your own it may serve you well. She said she thought about what there was to do. What would be hardest, what next hardest, what followed that, and so on. Then she decided which level was within her reach, how difficult a task she could manage. Mora, do you understand what I'm saying? She ranked the tasks mentally."

"I think so."

"She might decide that dragging the logs to the spot where her new house was to stand was the hardest, for example. That felling the trees was next hardest, and so on. And that both those would be too strenuous for her. Shaping the logs and boring the holes for the pegs were both too difficult, too; but she could cut small limbs for pegs and smooth them with a knife. That wouldn't be too hard for her."

Mora nodded. "Sometimes I do that, too."

"Then she went to the level above that one, and bored the holes."

The next nod came slowly, but it came.

"Blanko will be at war very soon, Mora. Your father thinks so, and he's got a level head and a good grasp of the situation here. I'm not going to tell you that you'll be loved as you wish if you do as Scleroderma did, or even as Nettie did. You may not be-and I honestly believe you'll be loved like that no matter what you do. But if you do what Scleroderma did, you'll deserve to be, which is something quite different. It is far easier to get all the good things that our lives have to offer than it is to deserve them. We seldom have much joy of them, however, unless we deserve them."

"I don't know if I could, " Mora muttered. Then, "I'll try."

"You'll be risking your life. I'm sure you understand that. What is far worse from my viewpoint, I am risking it just by talking to you as I am now. You may be killed. But Mora… "

"Yes?"

"You may be killed no matter what you do. Not everyone who runs risks dies, and many who try very hard to avoid every risk are killed anyway. You're the daughter of one of Blanko's leaders-"

"He's the Duko. They don't call him that, but he is."

"Things won't be easy for you if Blanko loses. Now go to your palaestra. You're very late already, I'm sure. My blessing goes with you, for whatever it's worth."

Oreb seconded me. "Go now. 'Bye, girl."

"About Fava… Does she really, really have to leave?"

I nodded. "For your grandmother's sake, for her own sake, and for yours."

Reluctantly, Mora rose. "She's the only friend I've got."

"Yes, I know. And as long as she is with you, she's the only friend you can have. Possibly you haven't thought of it like that; but Fava has, you may be sure. Another friend might guess the truth, as you did. Fava will see to it that no one gets that close to the two of you. Isn't she doing it already? You must know, and the story you told last night indicated that she is."

As I watched Mora go, it came to me that I was watching a woman who did not know that she was a woman or had not yet come to terms with the knowledge, a woman whose womanhood was reckoned not in years but in weeks or months – perhaps only in days.

When we were on Green and I was searching the river for the sword and the light I had been given, I walked up and down the banks of the river for most of a day. I found and saw a great many things without being much affected by any of them. I was looking for my light; I was looking for my sword; and since those other things were neither of them, I paid them little heed. They took their revenge on me just now, waking me wet with sweat. I have dried myself with the towel Inclito's mother gave me, lit the candle, and opened my door. I would like to have company, but Oreb is off exploring and everyone else seems to be asleep. If any of them are awake, perhaps they will drop in for a talk. There is no one in this house, not even the cook, whom I would not like to talk to. The gloomy chambermaid would be best, I believe. Her name is Torda, but Torda is probably too much to hope for.

In the meantime, I am going to write about what I saw and what I dreamed, which comes down to saying the same thing twice. By writing about them, I will subject them to the discipline of my conscious mind. At least I hope so.

The corpses were the first and the most obvious thing. They floated past upon the slow water the whole time I searched, mostly singly, but sometimes by two and threes. I have already written about the first, the one I saw in the water while the Neighbor was still with me. There would be no point in recording the same facts about the rest. I had cleared the blockage enough to raise the level of the river noticeably, and the opening I had made was permitting the water in the sewer to erode dead men (and women and children) as any little flow of water washes away grains of sand. A few of them floated face up. Most were face down, and I was glad of that.

Nothing has happened, except that I have sat here thinking, trying to recall something that I heard Patera Pike read from the Chrasmologic Writings long, long ago. Something about the people Pas put into our Long Sun Whorl multiplying until they were as numerous as grains of sand. Patera Remora has a copy of the Writings, I know. He probably has the quotation by heart, too; it would not even be necessary to ask him to look it up. But what a sad thing it is to try to live by a book written for another time and another whorl! The gods to whom he prays and sacrifices are far away.

Yet he is one of the few good men in New Viron. One of the few good men left, I ought to say. Who is worse off, we who have lost faith in his book, or he who keeps it, faithful without praise and without reward? We are, beyond all question. Better to be good without reason than to be evil for a hundred good reasons.

Can Great Pas really have meant for all this to happen when he inspired one of the Chrasmologic Writers to pen those few words about grains of sand? Can he have foreseen the blocked sewer on Green, and the corpses bursting free in the wave that nearly drowned me? In my dream, the floating corpses motioned to me and spoke, saying the things they had said in life, urging me to buy nails or boots, cheap clothing, and meat pies, blessing me in the names of various gods, and wishing me a good morning, a good afternoon; and it became clear to me that the dead cannot know that they are dead, that if they know it they cannot be dead. Thus all those dead men and women behaved in death as they had in life. It seemed certain that I was dead as well-that it was only because I too was dead and did not know it that I could hear the dead as I did, that I could see them move and speak.

Let me leave my dream for a line or two. I have wondered a good deal about the actions of the Neighbor who released me, gave me my sword (and no doubt the light), and set my task. Why did he want the sewer beneath the City of the Inhumi opened? And why did he want me to do it, and not some other? Why did he not do it himself?

Most important, why would he not permit me to take Sinew with me?

This last is the easiest, I feel sure. I had reached my conclusion long before nightfall, and have never changed it. He wished me to return to the City of the Inhumi and free everyone who had been held with me. If Sinew had been freed too, the two of us would have been much less likely to return for the others, and would, moreover, have shared their gratitude if we did. Freeing them made me their leader.

I had no desire to be, and still less did I wish to risk my life a second time in the City of the Inhumi. I decided, very firmly, and as I thought irrevocably, that I would not return-that I would not allow myself to be so manipulated. Sinew had detested me for years; very well, let him free himself or die. As for the others who had been our companions on He-hold-fire's lander, I did not care a straw for any of them except Krait, who was safe. I resolved that when night came I would abandon the search and make my way down the river until fatigue overcame me, putting as much distance as possible between the City and myself.

The sky, which is nearly always dark on Green, grew darker; and the slumberous silence of river and jungle was violated again and again. I heard splashes and snorts as animals, newly awakened from their day-sleep, came to drink, and from across the river (which was by no means wide) the breaking of bones as some beast fed upon a stranded corpse. With my mind's eyes, I saw the blind man crouching on the bank, an arm between his jaws.

And I set off downriver, as I had resolved to do.

In my dream tonight, however, that moment never came. I had found gems, or at least smooth stones that seemed gems, in the sand in the hollow of an abrupt bend in the channel. After pocketing a few I ignored the rest, having hoped to find my light there. In my dream they were jewels indeed, jewels as big as pullet's eggs, sparkling from a hundred facets. At the opposite point, where the strengthened current washed away the earth of the bank, I had glimpsed squared stones and shards of pottery among the roots. In my dream, these became strange machines and gleaming weapons, objects of unthinkable power and mystery. The dead children taunted me, and begged, "A cardbit, sir? Just one cardbit, " urged on by Scylla.

Or at least, I believe now that those strange machines and weapons must exist only in my dream tonight, as Active as Scylla and the speaking dead. It may have been, however, that they were actually present, that I saw them and ignored them, refusing to recognize them for what they were; but that my memory has stored them up, and now recalls them to torment me for my neglect. What might we find if we were to dig for those treasures near buildings such as this rambling house of Inclito's?

Tonight, when we told stories around the dinner table, I discovered to my utter astonishment and her consternation that I could enter into Fava's, seeing everything she described and more, and changing the course of her tale. (I must remember to describe all that here.) If there is more to tales than I have ever believed, may there not be more to dreams, too? I will not say that there are treasures in the ruins here because I dreamed them. Madness lies in all such assumptions. But may not they be there, just as my sword was concealed in a wall? (Better yet, as the silver cup must have been hidden somewhere in the ruined Neighbor house near Gaon.) And may I not find some because of my dream?

For a moment at least I had the company I have been wishing for. The kitchen maid, fully dressed, with tousled hair and the indescribable expression of a woman who has been satisfied in love, appeared in my doorway to ask whether I would not like something to eat. Without answering her question, I demanded to know why she was awake at such an hour.

She said that it was necessary for her to rise very early to help the cook make bread, so that we could have freshly baked bread at breakfast, which my host's mother insists upon whenever there is company.

I remarked that she could not get much sleep in that case, asked where she had slept. It struck home. She colored, her cheeks (fuller even than Mora's) blushing so dark a red that I could not miss it even by candlelight, and said that she slept in the kitchen. "I'm going there now."

I refrained from asking from where.

"So I can get you something very easily, Master Incanto, if you want anything, sir."

I told her that I did not, and she fled. The other maid is slender and more attractive.

I have tried to sleep again, but it is perfectly useless. The nightmare river waits in my mind, ready to pounce the moment my eyes close, its dead people voicing their dead greetings and its dead children crying out to me for help. I do not mean that I dreamed it again. I cannot have, since I did not sleep. But it filled my thoughts most unpleasantly.

Not half a minute after I sat up again, in came the kitchen maid with this tray. This time I was able to speak with her somewhat longer, although she seemed more frightened than ever. Her name is Onorifica, she is the fourth child of seven, and her father owns a smaller, poorer farm nearby. He has bought three heifers (Onorifica says very good ones) from Inclito, and is paying for them with three years' labor from his daughter.

"It's not near as bad as you're thinking, sir. I get plenty to eat and my clothes, and presents sometimes." She showed me a silver ring and a bracelet she thinks is gold. It is actually brass if I am any judge, and was probably made in Gaon, where you can see a thousand like it on any market day.

"And I'll get in a nap after breakfast, sir. Cook and I both will."

I asked her about the others. Decina, the cook, is a permanent servant, paid in foodstuffs that she trades for whatever other things she may require. The coachman and the other farm laborers are paid in the same fashion, and all take a wagon into Blanko once a month to trade for whatever they want or need.

Torda, the other maid, is a distant relation of Inclito's. "A cousin?" I suggested.

"She'd like you to think it, sir. Madame's brother's son was married to her mother. I think that's the way of it. Only he got killed in a war, and she married somebody else, and that when she"-she meant Torda-"got born. It's some story like that, sir. Anyhow she came here in rags, that's what cook says, expecting to be treated like Mora, you know. Only they was always fighting. That was how it was when I came and I've got to go."

This tray she brought me holds a cup and saucer, a little pot of very good tea, sugar whiter than I was accustomed to in Gaon, half a lemon, and enough cherry tarts for four or five persons. I am drinking the tea, but I intend to leave the tarts for Oreb. That business about fresh bread for breakfast suggests a substantial meal.

Looking back over what I wrote an hour ago, I find my speculations on the motives of the Neighbor on Green who recruited me to clean his sewer. Let us try another, one I think deeper and more difficult.

Why (I asked) did he not do it himself? I am going to propose two theories; neither or both may be correct. The first is that the Neighbors find it hard to move some kinds of objects. So it seems to me after the dealings I have had with them. I do not think that they are here in the sense we are, even when they are standing beside us. This is only speculation, but I believe they may be able to move natural objects such as sticks and stones, and things that they themselves made when Blue and Green were their homes, better than other things. The silver cup they gave me (which I am very sorry I left: behind), the door the Neighbor opened for me when I was confined on Green, and the sword and light he gave me are all examples. We human beings are native to the Long Sun Whorl, and not to Blue or Green; and so the tangled corpses of so many hundreds of us would have presented a Neighbor with great difficulties, if I am correct.

Second, he wished me to see (and to smell and touch) those bodies. He might have freed me in many ways, and made me the leader of my fellow prisoners in many ways, too. But I cannot think of any other way in which he could have been half so effective. The horror of the inhumi that I had when I set out from the Lizard had been blunted by living with Krait on the sloop. If the Neighbor wanted to renew it as much as it could be renewed, he chose the most effective possible way of doing it.

I believe, however, that his true goal was to give me a realistic understanding of what we faced.

Before moving ahead, I ought to double back to the time after Mora left me. I've written nothing about that.

When I received the letters, it struck me that if I was going to ride out here with Mora and Fava it would be of value to know at what time their palaestra ended. I asked directions and walked over to it, and fin ding the coachman already waiting for them, I wrote Inclito a note thanking him for his invitation and saying that I could not come that day but hoped to come the next, and asked him to tell his coachman to allow me to ride with Mora and her friend.

The owner of the stationery store had invited me to share his supper; it was a simple meal of bread and soup, and I surprised and pleased him and his wife by eating little of either and amusing them with stories of my journey to Viron with Pig and Hound. Before we ate (as! should have said in the beginning) they asked me to invoke the gods. I blessed our meal in the name of the Outsider, making the sign of addition as solemnly as I would have when I was a boy, and talked about him for a few moments afterward. There is a great hunger for the gods here on Blue, I believe; but without their presence it lacks a focus.

Onorifica came back, perspiring from her bread-making but with her hair in better order. She had appeared frightened when she carried my tray in, her eyes darting around the room; I had thought that she was afraid of Oreb and had assured her that he was gone. This time she seemed more resolute; I made her sit down and offered her one of her own tarts.

"Cook was like to die at me for that, sir." She sat gingerly, picked up a tart in both hands, and nibbled at it like a fat squirrel.

I remained silent.

"She's afraid of you, sir. Swears she won't show her face in the kitchen door as long as you're here."

Of course I said that she had no reason to be, although I wondered how true it was; it seemed barely possible that his cook was the spy Inclito felt certain he was harboring.

"They're afraid of you in town, too, sir. Terrible afraid's what I hear."

I asked whether she had been there, and when she said she had not, how she knew.

"Coachman says, sir." She paused, worried (I believe) that she might be getting her informant into trouble. "He's got to come straight back after he drops them off in the morning, sir, and he does."

"But in the afternoon he has time to-" Gossip clearly would not do. "Talk to people there, assuming that he arrives a little early."

"That's right, sir."

"When I rode out here, Onorifica, Mora and Fava told me that their teachers had been quizzing them about me all day."

She chewed and swallowed. "I think so, sir."

"They also said that they'd given me a good character, and told everyone I was perfectly harmless. That last is quite true, and I'd like to think that the first is, too-though I know better."

"Is that all they said, sir?"

I shook my head. "They said quite a lot, Fava particularly. But that's all they told me that they had told their teachers."

"Mora wouldn't lie to you, sir."

"I'm delighted to hear it." I would have been even more delighted if I had believed it.

"But that Fava! Don't you trust her, sir."

I promised I would not.

"Looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Well, Master don't trust her, let me tell you. I've heard him jawing away sometimes, and she come in the room and that's the end. After that he talks about as much as a sti-" As Onorifica spoke, she caught sight of the staff that Cugino had cut for me. In a markedly different tone she asked, "Does your stick talk, sir?"

I smiled and said that it had not done so recently.

"It has that little face on it, though, don't it, sir?"

"Does it really? Show it to me."

"I'd rather not to touch it, sir, if it's-would you want me to fetch it, sir?" Her eyes pleaded with me to refuse, so I got up and got it myself.

She pointed, her trembling finger a good cubit from the wood. "Right here, sir."

There was a small hole where a knot had come out. Above it, a minute protuberance that might be called a nose, and over that two small, dark markings, that could-with a cartload of imagination-be taken for eyes. I rubbed this "face" with my thumb, dislodging a few dry scraps of inner bark. "Do you mean this, Onorifica?"

"Don't touch it, please, sir." The color left her cheeks. "Don't make it talk."

Suppressing a smile, I promised not to.

"What I got to ask you about, sir, is-is… " Her lips twitched soundlessly.

"Whether I really am a strego, as your mistress calls them? A magic worker?"

Her expression told me I had missed the mark, but her head bobbed.

"No, Onorifica, I'm not. No one is."

I waited for her to speak.

"Nobody is. There is no such thing as magic, in the way you mean it. Things we don't understand, ghosts and sudden storms for instance, make us think that there might be. But ghosts are merely the spirits of the dead, and though I don't know what causes sudden storms, I know they aren't raised by magic. It's true that certain people can predict the future, but they do it by drawing upon insights that they don't know they have, or because they're informed by the gods."

I smiled again, trying to reassure her. "Long ago I was the friend of someone who became a sort of god, an aspect of Pas. He gave me a lot of information and advice, and all of it was valuable. But wise as he was, he taught me no magic. He couldn't have, even if he had considered such a thing desirable."

"Like tonight, sir."

I thought she was referring to Fava's story. "Strange things happen, Onorifica. Nevertheless, it is no explanation to call them magic." There was a tap at the windowpane, and I got up and opened the window to let Oreb in.

"Good girl?" He eyed the good girl (who seemed on the verge of fainting) doubtfully.

"A very good girl, " I assured him.

"I told him we shouldn't with you in the house, " the good girl blurted, showering me with crumbs.

"Bad thing, " Oreb warned me.

I started to ask whom she intended by "him, " thinking that there might be an inhumu here, then realized the true state of affairs. Speaking very softly I said, "The friend to whom I referred was spied upon once when he was shriving a young woman. He told me that because the young woman had kept her voice very low, the spy had learned little or nothing." More loudly I concluded, "We should do the same."

"Yes, Master Incanto." From her expression, Onorifica had not the least idea what I was talking about.

"You happened to pass my room tonight on your way back to the kitchen, and very kindly asked whether I needed anything. And I, without in the least meaning to, frightened you by asking where you slept. Isn't that so?"

She seemed almost afraid to move her head, but managed a nod.

"I have no business interfering in my host's affairs, save those in which he has asked my help, and no business interfering in yours at all."

In a hoarse whisper she asked, "Are you going to do anything to me?"

"Punish you? I can't. And wouldn't if I could. He's given you a ring, anyway."

"Only we're not, you know, sir, married."

"You couldn't be, since there are no proper augurs here. My wife and I were united by Patera Remora, who is an augur, so we're really married. Without one, giving a ring is about as much as anyone can do. You might have a child, however. Have you thought about that?"

The fear vanished and she glowed. "I want one, sir. He'll take care of us. I know him."

I rose. I cannot have been impressive in Inclito's borrowed nightshirt, but she seemed impressed. To further impress her, I grasped my staff. Oreb hopped from my shoulder to the angled handle. "I don't have an augur's power to forgive wrongdoing, " I told Onorifica, "but I can bless you, and I will. By Great Pas's generosity, anyone may bless." I traced the sign of addition in the air, and asked Pas and the Outsider to look with favor upon her and any children she might bear.

When I finished, she rose smiling. "Thank you, sir. Can I-would you like anything else?"

"Only a couple of very minor items, " I told her. "You were going to tell me what the coachman had learned in town. What was it?"

"Everybody's afraid of you, sir." She licked her fingers. "They won't go near the shop where you're staying when you're there, only when you're gone they all come wanting to hear about you, only he won't tell them anything unless they buy. Cook'll be after me the same way, sir."

"I understand. What do you plan to tell her?"

"Nothing, sir."

"Nothing at all?"

"Well, maybe something." She smiled again, and for the first time I felt that I understood why Inclito was attracted to her. "But not very much."

I said, "That would be wise, I'm sure. But before you return to the kitchen, would you please find the other maid-wake her up if you must-and tell her I need to speak to her?"

"Yes, Master Incanto. Right away."

"And on your way out, you might ask Fava to come in. She's waiting in the hall, or she was."

As soon as I had spoken, Fava entered. Less boldly, Mora shuffled behind her. Both were in their nightdresses.