The World and Thorinn

14 How Thorinn was offered dominion over the world at a price, and learned his true name.

He came up out of darkness with a gasp and a shudder: then he saw that he was still in the same room. It was a moment longer before he realized that the net on the wall was empty. All his possessions, including the box and the magic jug, were gone.

When thirst began to fret him, he took off his clothes and went into the washing box, but as he had more than half expected, nothing happened when he put his feet on the floor. He did not bother to dress again. Without the box to talk to or anything to occupy his hands, he had nothing to do but to wander through the empty rooms, around and around. Presently he was hungry as well as thirsty; he thought with longing of the fruit he had eaten in the cavern of the flower people and again in the demons' cavern; of the crisp dry taste of cheese; of dried meat, tough and full of flavor. That passed, and the thirst remained. When he was younger he had had a mouse, kept in a cage he had carved out of an oak gall; he had fed it grain and oatmeal, and a bit of cheese now and then; he remembered how the mouse had sat up and nibbled the cheese, turning it around and around with its dainty paws. He slept and awoke again. Nothing in the rooms had changed. His thirst was a torment; his throat and tongue were dry, his lips cracking; his very eyeballs were dry. Each time he passed the crystals in the wall, he felt the engine watching, silent, waiting for him to speak first. He vowed to himself that he would not, if he died for it.

When he slept again, he dreamed that he was drinking long, delicious drafts from the spring above Hovenskar, and that the sky was blue and the grass yellow. Then the water turned to dry leaves in his mouth, and he awoke. He was very feeble, and it was too much effort even to pull his weightless body from one pole to another. Toward the end of that day, he began to see figures moving in the room: he saw Goryat, and Untha, and a tree demon, but they were transparent.

He awoke and knew that something had changed. Over his face a crystal shell drew away. His thirst was gone; he licked his lips and they were moist. Now the engine with its spidery arms was drifting toward him: the arms reached out, plucked him up gently from the box he was in. He had an impulse to free himself, but forbore. They were rising through the circular hole in the ceiling; now they were in the sleeping room. The engine put him with his back against the pole, just as it had done before; the coils came around him. The engine withdrew and disappeared into the room below.

"Are you ready to answer questions now?" asked the voice.

"No," he said. "Bring my things back."

"Your things will be brought."

Thorinn released himself from the coils, tried the water tube, although he felt no thirst. He drank, swallowed a little, spat the rest out. Next he tried the food tube, and this time, in place of the sticky mass that had come before, a bolus of something firmer came into his mouth. It was like a soft cheese. He did not like the texture, but the taste was not bad; he chewed and swallowed it, and then took another. The engine reappeared with his bundles clutched in its arms. It floated to the net on the wall and dexterously tucked all the bundles inside. All the things he had had before were there, but not his sword or bow.

"Bring my weapons, too," he said.

The voice did not reply. Thorinn made his way to the washing-box and cleansed himself. When he came out, feeling stronger, the engine was rising through the hole with his sword, the bow, and half a dozen arrows in its arms. It thrust the weapons into the net, turned, and dropped out of sight again. The bow was cracked, the arrows had lost all their pitch, but the sword and sheath were intact. Thorinn dressed and buckled them on.

"Are you ready to answer questions now?"

"Not now, and not to you."

"If you do not answer now, no more food or water will be given." With more boldness than he felt, Thorinn answered, "You tried that once and it didn't work. It won't work next time either. Leave me alone until I eat and rest."

The voice said nothing more. Thorinn examined his bundles, unwrapped some meat, ate and drank. He was weak, but growing stronger.

"Now I'll answer questions," he said, "but only to the Monitor, not you." Before he could blink, a man in a white robe was standing there. He was an old man, three ells tall, white of mane and beard. His yellow eyes burned into Thorinn's. Around him was a lambent glow; when he turned, spidery webworks of brilliance spun on the walls. Thorinn would have fallen to his knees if he could; the breath went out of his body, and the fine hairs on his arms were standing up stiff as quills.

"I am the Monitor," the old man boomed. "Will you answer my questions, Thorinn Goryatson?" Thorinn realized in panic that he had miscalculated; before this awesome majesty he felt himself no more than a worm.

"Yes, lord," he said miserably.

"Tell me, then, where you went from the dark cave."

"There was a narrow passage—I got into it by moving stones away. Then another cave and another passage, and then I found a hole in the floor covered by a shield. Under that there was a cavern with people in it."

Behind the Monitor one of the crystals in the wall came alight, and in it Thorinn saw, as if spread out below him, the river and the forests of the flower-people. "Was it this cavern?" the old man demanded.

"Yes."

The crystal blinked, and now he saw a tiny shape floating down the river. It was the pleasure pod, and he realized with a cold shock that he himself was inside it. The pod ran down the swift current, sank under the wall of rock, and was gone.

Now the picture changed again. Thorinn was looking at the grassy bank above the river where the dead limb still lay, and the forked limb on top of it, with the punctured gourd in the fork. The gourd, he saw, was beginning to rot.

The crystal blinked again, and now he saw the whole device as he had made it—the gourd full of water holding down the fork of the limb, the creeper looped around the projecting stub at one end, tied to the pleasure pod at the other.

"Is this what you did?"

In the crystal, a tiny Thorinn pierced the gourd with his sword, watched the water begin to gush out, then turned down the slope and got into the gaping pleasure pod. There was something wrong about the Thorinn figure and the pod and the creeper: they had thin pale edges that seemed to separate them from the rest of the scene, and the figure's movements were not quite right. The pod closed over the tiny Thorinn; as the water continued to run from the gourd, the forked limb tilted, the creeper slid off the stub, the pod went down the bank into the river.

"Yes," said Thorinn, "that's what happened."

"Who taught you to make such an engine?"

"No one."

"How then did you learn to make it?"

"I don't know—I just thought about it, and then there was a picture in my head of how it must be." The Monitor looked at him in silence for an instant. There was a pale edge around him, too, as if, as if—"Where did you go from there?" the Monitor asked in a different tone.

"I was in the water. Then I went down where the stones were broken, and found a passage going upward, and then I found a hole in the wall and went into a cavern."

"Was it this cavern?"

In the crystal, he saw a tiny Thorinn sitting on the floor with treasures heaped around him. "Here, that's odd," he heard his own voice say.

"Yes," he said. The picture disappeared.

"And where did you go from there?"

"Through the roof, into a great tunnel."

"Was it a tunnel like this?"

In the crystal, he saw the vast arcs of light running away into the distance.

"Yes."

"And from there?"

"I fell into a shaft when a bird attacked me." He dared to add: "Was it your bird?"

"Yes." In the crystal, Thorinn saw himself toppling from the ledge, gaping in horror; the image expanded, blurred, and he was looking down the shaft, watching his own receding body as it floated downward, dwindling to a point, gone.

"And then?" the Monitor demanded.

"I fell into a place at the side of the shaft."

"Was it this place?"

In the crystal, he saw the ribbed floor and ceiling, the three doors at the end. "Yes. I went through one of those doors."

In the crystal, he saw the bare platform. "And from there?"

"I went into a room. Yes, that one." He saw the broken metal, the burst ceiling.

"And from there?"

"I found a passage that took me to another tunnel, and then a shaft into a cavern. From there I went through a hole in the sky into a passage, and then a tunnel, and then your engine took me prisoner. Then I woke up in another cavern, and then I got out through the waterfall."

"How did you know that the waterfall would stop if you made fire?" Thorinn peered up at the Monitor. There was certainly something about him that was like the false images in the crystal, and for that matter, it was odd that he could stand on the floor, with his robes hanging straight, when all else was afloat in the air. "Well," Thorinn said, "if it didn't, the people there would have drowned, because it kept on raining." Feeling a little bolder, he asked, "Why are you so afraid of fire?"

"I am not afraid of fire," said the Monitor.

"Well, why are you afraid of me, then? Why do you keep trying to hold me prisoner?"

"You must be held prisoner, or you may go back into the Underworld and do more harm."

"I, harm?" said Thorinn. "I've harmed nobody, except the demons who tried to kill me."

"You have done great harm everywhere."

"That can't be true. If it's not true, will you send me back to the Midworld?"

"Yes."

Thorinn's heart leaped, but in the crystal he saw the blackened forest in the cavern of the flower-people. New green vines were growing through the tangle; the clearing was deserted.

"The people of that cavern had never known that men could kill, and they were happy. It will take many years to make them happy again."

"But I didn't kill anyone," said Thorinn.

"You killed birds and ate them. The people there did not know such things could be. Now they know, and it is hard for them to love their life."

Thorinn swallowed hard. Now, in the crystal, he saw the blackened hole in the top of the demons' house. The edges were all soggy char; it had rained there, too, but not soon enough. "All right, I did that," he said, "but there was cause for it. What about the wingpeople—what harm did I do there?" The crystal blinked, and now he was looking from a height into the courtyard of the palace. Up one wall ran a sooty streak three times the height of a man.

"You taught the children how to make fire. One of the elders took the engine from them, but they will remember and make another. From this will come other engines, and from this, great killing. Their lives are spoilt, and it is all to do over."

In the crystal, Thorinn saw a procession of wingmen and women with sleeping children in their arms. They gathered in the courtyard and waited. A great gray engine lowered itself out of the sky; it was like the one that had captured Thorinn, but much larger. A door opened in its side; the wingmen went in with their burdens and came out empty-handed.

"What will you do with them?" Thorinn asked.

"They will be kept until another place is ready for them. The men children will be put in one place and the women children in another. They will live out their lives and die." Thorinn was blinded by tears. They did not run down his cheeks as they ought, but puddled in his eyesockets, warm and stinging. He dashed them away with his fingers, and when he could see again they were drifting about the room, tiny bright spheres. One of them floated straight toward the Monitor, touched his robe, dwindled and disappeared without leaving a stain. A few moments later he saw it emerge from the other side, whole and perfect: then he knew that the Monitor was not really here, that what he saw was only a magical sending.

Anger stiffened his body. "You talk about me doing harm!" he cried. "How could you do that to children?"

"I do what I must. Thorinn Goryatson—"

"Wait," said another voice.

Thorinn turned, saw the crystal of the magic box glinting between the meshes of the net on the wall.

"Monitor, I must ask you a question. When men gave you power over the world, was it forever?" The tall figure had turned to look at the box with an expression of offended surprise. It was silent, but the box spoke as if it were answering a question. "No, I'm not broken. Thorinn has told me I must do anything I can to help him. Answer so that he can hear."

The Monitor said, "It was not forever."

"When must you give your power back to men?"

"When a ruler of men asks me for it."

"It may be that Thorinn is a ruler of men. Thorinn, do you ask the Monitor to give you his power?" Half comprehending, Thorinn answered, "Yes."

The Monitor turned to him. "Thorinn Goryatson, you have already said that you don't know who your parents were."

Before he could answer, the box said, "That's true, but what if they were kings?" The Monitor said nothing, but in the crystal in the wall Thorinn again saw as if from a height the great bowl of Hovenskar. Now it was empty: there was no house, no horse-barn, no tanyard, only the yellow grass glittering with frostflakes under a gray sky. Over the high rim came a little procession of men on horseback, driving other horses before them, some loaded high with bundles, others barebacked. The figures came forward in a rush until they filled the crystal, but they were dim and gray, as if seen through fog. Thorinn could make out the tall figure of Goryat, then two smaller ones, half-grown boys; then a fourth, perched high on the horse, absurdly small—a child. Was that himself? With a pang of disbelief, he leaned forward.

The scene disappeared. Now there was another: the same caravan moving in the distance across a vast barren plain in a swirl of frostflakes. It disappeared in its turn, and a third scene took its place. It was night, and in the green sky-glow he saw the four mounted figures and their horses moving down a rocky defile. "That is all," said the Monitor.

"From which direction did they come?" asked the box.

In the crystal, a blotched globe appeared; there were lines on it which Thorinn did not understand.

"Whose land is that?" the box asked.

The Monitor said, "They are called the Skryllings."

"Who was their king?"

"He was called Dar the Bold." In the crystal, Thorinn saw a walled town with peaked roofs of tile, trees growing from courtyards; there were mountains beyond it. Now, floating invisible, he was drawing nearer: he saw a wide open square paved with cobblestones, and a crowd of people in bright garments. In the midst of them were five men on horseback; one, the tallest, carried a hooded bird on his wrist.

"And after him, who was to be king?"

The scene disappeared; now they were looking at a balcony where the tall man stood with a child in his arms, a golden-haired woman beside him. "Dar's son, called Caerwin the Lame." The Lame! Thorinn peered closer, but the tiny face was a stranger's.

"Why was he called that?" the box asked.

"One of his legs was harmed when he was born."

"Which leg?"

"The left."

"And is Dar still king?"

"No. He was killed in fighting with the Kerns." In the crystal, many men were crowding together on horseback and afoot; weapons glinted through a cloud of dust. Thorinn glimpsed the tall man, saw him go down.

"Who was king after him?"

"Dar's brother, called Alf Bonebreaker, was king. He is dead. After him there is no king."

"And where is Caerwin?"

"The Skryllings believe he is dead. The Kerns took the king's house and killed all in it, but Caerwin's body was not found."

"Therefore," said the box, "Thorinn may be the king of the Skryllings. He was taken from the land of the Skryllings, and he is lame in the left leg."

"It is not enough," said the Monitor.

Thorinn's body went cold. "Wait a moment," he said. He opened his wallet, fumbled until he found the scrap of cloth he had carried with him from Hovenskar. "Let me see Caerwin again." In the crystal, there stood the tall man. the woman and the child as before. "Let me see him closer." The image bloomed, expanded: now the child filled the crystal. He was dressed in a garment woven with bright figures of birds and people. Thorinn held up the scrap of cloth, trembling: the figures were the same.

After a moment the Monitor said calmly, "You are the king of the Skryllings." The majestic figure bowed its head. "What will you have me do?"

"Let me go back to the Midworld," said Thorinn, his heart bursting with joy.

"That cannot be done," said the Monitor sternly. "The king of the world must be here, where the world is ruled."

"But how can I be king of the Skryllings if I am here?"

"You are the king of the Skryllings until they choose another king." Thorinn's heart was a stone. "And then," he said, "because I am not king of the Skryllings any more, I can't be king of the world either, and you will do what you like with me."

"That is true."

"Box," said Thorinn bitterly, "what is the use of this?"

"I don't know, Thorinn."

He said to the Monitor, "Let me go back and be king of the Skryllings, and then I will come here again and be king of the world."

"That cannot be done. There are things that must be decided soon."

"What things?"

Abruptly the room was swallowed by darkness. Only the Monitor remained, glowing like witchfire, suspended in the midst of a vast emptiness. Now a glowing ball appeared before him, at the height of his chest. Thorinn blinked; the ball was so bright that it hurt his eyes. Next, around the ball glowing lines appeared, thin as hairs, like elongated circles with the ball near their center. On each of these lines, he saw, there was a tiny bead of light, and as he watched, those nearest the central ball crept slowly along their lines, all in the same direction, from the left hand to the right. Now a new line of brightness appeared. This one was not in the same level plane as the others; it swooped in from above, curved downward as it neared the ball, then continued into the distance. On this line, too, there was a tiny bead of light.

"This is our world," said the Monitor, and touched the bead with his long forefinger. "These are other worlds." His finger moved to the beads on the stretched circles around the central ball, one after another.

"This one is like ours. Men could live on it."

He turned to Thorinn. "Once our world was part of a family of worlds like this one, turning about a central fire. Then the fire grew too strong. Men made our world move, to seek another fire. Now we must choose whether to stay or go on. If I make the world move slower, it will turn about this fire as the other worlds do."

The line from above curved more sharply, turned back on itself; now it was a closed curve like the others.

"If I do nothing, the world will go on until we come to another fire." The original line reappeared.

"I don't understand," Thorinn said. "If I were not the king, what would you do?"

"I would go on. Our world does not need to turn about a fire for heat, as other worlds do. If men went to live on another world, I could not keep them from harm."

"Then why come here at all?"

"I was told to do so by the men who made me."

"Well, suppose I say to go on, then—what else is there?" The central ball, the lines and beads, all disappeared in the click of an instant. Now a vast gray globe filled the room, like a cloud around the Monitor. In it Thorinn saw ghostly threads, some radiating from the center, some in concentric layers. "In our world there are three hundreds of thousands of thousands of caverns where men live, and in each one they are living in a different way. You must decide which way is best."

"But how am I to do that?"

"I don't know."

Thorinn saw then that his kingship was only a grim joke, and that the king of the world was nothing but another kind of prisoner. He said dully, "Leave me alone now." The Monitor vanished; the room was bare and empty in the even light, just as it had been before. "Box," said Thorinn, "can they hear what we say?"

"Yes."

"In the other rooms, too?"

"Yes, Thorinn, but not in the washing-box."

Thorinn began to take off his clothes. When they were all floating in the air, he fetched the box from the net on the wall, leaped to the washing-box, closed the door behind him. "Box, I must get away. Tell me how to do it."

"Thorinn, the Monitor says I am broken. I say I am not, but if I am broken by the geases you put on me, then your only hope of getting away must be to break the Monitor, too."

"How do you mean, by telling him he must not do anything to harm me, and so on?"

"Yes, but it will not be easy, for there is a geas on the Monitor already, and he is much greater than I am."

"What sort of geas?"

"The Monitor has been told that he must do everything he can for the good of men."

"Much good that does me."

"Thorinn, the Monitor is not sure what is good for men. If you can make him believe that it is good for men to let you go back to the Midworld, he will let you go."

Thorinn opened the door of the washing-box and put the box outside to drift in the air; he closed the door again, put his feet on the floor and let the water gush over his body. When he was cleansed and dried, he went out into the room and put his clothes on. The box was drifting near one wall. Thorinn retrieved it and put it in the net.

He took a deep breath. "Monitor," he said.

And the bearded old man was there, in the middle of the room.

"Monitor," Thorinn said carefully, "while I am king of the world, I will choose to let the world turn around the fire you showed me. And I will choose to send men to live on the other world, the one that is like ours. That will be bad for men, because you won't be able to keep them from harm. Is that true?"

"It is true."

"But you must let me do it, because of the geas that is on you."

"That is also true."

"But if you let me do it, you'll be allowing men to come to harm, and you are forbidden to do that by another geas. Is it true?"

"Yes, it is true."

"And if I give up being king of the world, then you mustn't let me go back to the Midworld, because then I might come into the Underworld again and do harm."

"That is true."

"But if I don't go back to the Midworld, I will stay here and be king of the world, and do harm." The figure of the old man flickered, like a candle in the wind. "That is true."

"Which harm is greater? Remember that if I stay here as king of the world, I will think of other things to do that may harm men."

"It is a greater harm if you stay here as king of the world."

"Then I'll make a bargain with you. Give me three things, and I will leave you to rule."

"What are the three things?"

"First, you must take me back to the Midworld, to the land of the Skryllings, with all my possessions. Do you agree?"

"I will answer when I have heard the other two things."

"Very well. Second, you must awaken the wing-children again and let them live together, even if they make a fire now and then."

"And the third?"

"The third is this, and it must be a geas upon you. The best way for men to live is that which gives them the most freedom to choose how they will live."

"I agree to the second and third things," said the Monitor. "I agree to the first thing in part. I will send you back to the Midworld with all the possessions you brought from it, but nothing from the Underworld."

"Thorinn, you must agree," said the box at once.

He turned to look at it. "But that would mean leaving you behind."

"You must, for if the men of the Midworld saw me, they would know that what you tell them about the Underworld is true, and they would want to come here themselves." Thorinn bit his lip. "Monitor," he said, "couldn't you put the box into an engine that looks like a man, like the ones in the wingpeople's cavern?"

Before the old man could reply, the box said, "That cannot be done, Thorinn. Remember that the children were deceived, but you were not. And besides, it may be true that I am broken." It paused a moment, and said in a different tone, "Monitor, will you also agree to put me back in the cavern where Thorinn found me, and leave me there in case he comes again?"

"I agree," said the Monitor. "But I will stop up all the passages by which he came before."

"That is understood," the box said. "Now, Thorinn, it is time to say farewell." The spidery engine came floating up from the room below. "What, already?" Thorinn looked around, but there was nothing to take with him; everything he had brought from the Midworld was already on his back or in his wallet.

The Monitor said, "You and I will not meet again. Farewell, Caerwin Darson." The tall figure" vanished.

"Box, I'll remember you," said Thorinn. The spidery engine drifted up, wrapped its coils around him. As they descended through the hole in the floor, the room, the box in its net, floated upward and were gone.

As the box had foretold, the first engine took him to another, a metal egg with stout walls and thick windows. When the door was shut, water spurted into the chamber around them and filled it; then they went out into a darkness broken only by their own lights. Thorinn saw schools of little fish like flashing coins, and once something larger that hung for a moment at the edge of the darkness. At length they came out into the air again; the door opened, and the engine's arms grasped him and handed him through like a sack of wheat into the belly of another engine. This one was like the engine that had captured him before. They went through another doorway. The windows were instantly obscured by a thick white cloud, and remained so for the rest of their journey upward. In this engine, things had weight again; Thorinn felt himself growing heavier and heavier as the days passed.

On the fourth day, shortly after he awoke, there was a change; he felt the engine turning in the air. Looking back through the windows, he saw the cloud they had just emerged from. It came out of a great hole in the plain, rose in a gigantic column and spread out under the sky like a tree of cloud. Under it was bogland, gray and swampy, with incessant rains, but when they had got beyond it the sky was bright. They traveled high in the air all that day, and just before nightfall Thorinn saw ahead a wall of towering mountains that rose from the plain like a fortress. First there was a sloping cliff, thousands of ells high, then a broad green plain cut by rivers and dotted by lakes: then the true mountains, which he had seen only in his dreams.

Night scythed overhead as they approached the Highlands, and the mountain peaks passed below green and mysterious in the sky-glow. Here and there, high in the valleys folded into the mountains, Thorinn could make out the lights of clustered houses, but at length these went out and they drifted onward over a sleeping landscape.

Feverish with impatience, Thorinn hopped back and forth in the belly of the engine, trying to get used to his unaccustomed weight; he had been so long away that his limbs were heavy, and even his leather garments felt as if they were made of lead.

The engine came to rest on a high ridge overlooking a town; the door opened. Thorinn hopped out and turned. The door closed silently, the engine rose into the darkness and was gone. Thorinn stood and waited for dawn.

All around him, in the breathing night, in the earth under his feet, he felt how wide the world was. It was not at all like the safe, small world he had known in Hovenskar. And indeed, if he told anyone all that he now knew, who would believe him?

An eye of brightness opened in the eastern sky and swept fanwise toward him. The land brightened, the trees turned from gloom to green; birds began to sing in the branches. Distant and dreamlike as the Underworld and all its perils seemed to him now, in a curious fashion Hovenskar seemed even more remote. Once he had meditated vengeance—tricking Goryat and his sons to the well-curb, toppling them in. Now that seemed no longer to matter; let them live or die as it pleased them.

Down below, he could see the peaked roofs of the town, the threads of smoke rising from chimney-pots. Presently the gates opened and he saw a procession with banners winding toward him up the defile. After all, there were parts of his adventure that no sensible person could believe. To imagine that this great globe could be only a mote in some unthinkable cavern, for instance: that could not be true. But then what was true?

Thorinn tilted his head to look at the bright canopy of the sky. Were there other caverns up there, or was there a shell of stone that went on forever, as the wingmen believed?

One day, perhaps, he would go and see.