Return to the Whorl (The Book of the Short Sun #3) 7

Maytera is on board-badly frightened, but on board. She sits by the cabin and holds on with both hands, and will scarcely speak. We bios can at least deceive ourselves into thinking we might survive a fall into the sea, or even the sinking of our boats. Maytera would die, and she knows it. Hoping to distract her, I asked how she reached Mucor's Rock.

"In a little boat I made."

"It was very brave of you.

"My granddaughter sat in the back. I could see then, but she told me how to go."

"Weren't you afraid?"

She nodded.

"This can't be worse."

"It's a lot worse, Patera. I-we..." Our bow rose upon a wave larger than most, and she gasped.

"You don't have to worry, Maytera. You really don't. It's storms that sink boats. This is just a good, stiff wind."

It seems extraordinarily foolish to write that there was fear in her eyes, when I carried one of those eyes in my pocket for so long and the other is blind and blank; yet it was so.

"Won't you be afraid on the lander, Maytera? Travel between the whorls is very hazardous. A great many people have died."

She nodded again.

To comfort her I said, "You told us once that we shouldn't be afraid of death, because the gods were waiting to receive us."

"When you came in to teach religion you mean, Patera? Yes, I suppose I did. I'm sure I did. I always said that."

"Is it any less true now?"

"When we went out to the island...

"Yes?"

"It was a long, long way out over the sea." Given something else to think about, she relaxed a trifle. "I couldn't even see it from where I sat in the boat, not at first. But we waited till the sea was very, very quiet. I forget how long it was." She paused, searching her memory for the information. "Fifteen. Fifteen days, and it was the middle of summer. Then one morning there were just tiny little hills of water."

"I understand."

"I tucked my skirt up under my belt. You know how I do."

She loosed her grip on the gunwale to finger her new gown. "It's nice to have a habit again. You had this made for me. That's what Vadsig says."

"I had to guess at the size."

"It's a little big, but I like that. If I want it tighter, I can wear something underneath it, or for winter. I won't be entitled to wear a habit anymore, but it's nice."

"It's not really a habit," I told her, "just a gown in the same style-black with the wide sleeves, and so forth."

"Yes." Her hold on the gunwale resumed.

"Would you like me to leave you alone?"

She shook her head vehemently. Oreb added, "Silk stay!" apparently fearing I had not understood her.

"It isn't bombazine anyway, Patera. Bombazine is silk and wool, sort of mixed together. This is worsted twill."

"It was the closest they had."

Her small, hard hand found mine. "Do you mind?"

In appearance, hers were the hands of an elderly woman; but I said, "Not unless you squeeze."

"When I find my husband again, I'm going to hold him just like this. And squeeze. It will be a day and a night, I think, before we ever let go. Then we'll make my daughter a real woman. A complete woman. And then we'll start another. Do you think I'll ever really get there? Will I be able to?"

"I'm certain you will."

"When I rowed out to the island, Patera..."

"Yes?"

"I wasn't afraid. My granddaughter told me where. I didn't know how to row, nothing at all, when we pushed the boat in. She was very patient with me."

I nodded. "She's a good woman in her way."

"That was what... What made it so easy for me, Patera. I kept telling myself I had to look after her, that she was just a child..."

"But she wasn't. I understand."

"Poor girl," Oreb muttered. "Poor girl."

"So it really didn't matter a bit if I died, and I wasn't afraid. There's my daughter now. I have to live for her."

Strange dream last night. I was back in my cell on the Red Sun Whorl. The torturers' apprentice was sitting on my bed. We talked for a time; then I got up and went to the door. Through the little barred window I could see the sea, quite smooth, and a hundred women standing upon the glassy water. All were robed in black. The boy behind me was saying, "And Abaia, and they live in the sea."

I woke, not so much frightened as confused, and went out on deck. Yesterday's wind, which had driven us so far so fast, had died away almost to nothing. The sea was exactly that which I had seen in my dream, though of course there were no women on it. Did the identical women represent Maytera's progeny, and their black robes her black gown? It seems improbable, but I can make no better guess.

Oreb talked to me for a time before I returned to my bunk. "Bird go. Go girl. Say come." With much more to the same effect. I told him to go if he wished, and off he flew.

"Where is he going, Patera?"

Maytera had spoken from the other side of the cabin. I went to her. "I thought you promised me you'd sleep."

"I promised to try."

I said nothing, and she added, "It isn't easy for us. It can take days."

"Are you still afraid?"

"Not as much. Patera?"

"Yes. What is it?"

'If I were to get to sleep, and then wake up, do you think I might be the sibyls' maid again? On Sun Street?"

I shook my head.

"I don't think so either. But I've been trying to remember the last time. The last time I slept? We don't ever wake up unless something wakes us. Did you know? And nothing did until Maytera Corn came in. Then I jumped up and fixed breakfast, but it was almost noon, and I never slept after that."

Home! Home at last. Hoof wrung my hand and slapped me on the back, just as though we had never been together in Dorp. Nettle kissed Vadsig, which made my heart leap for joy, and hugged and kissed me, and that was best of all. Our little house seems just the same, and the mill is running again. Hoof has been making paper.

Oreb flew over the sea, calling, "Here Silk! Here Silk!" as though to tell his fellow birds, although they are the white seabirds of Blue, with teeth and branching feathers, four legs and four wings. And I honestly do not believe we could have been happier if Silk himself had been here.

You came out to sit with me, my darling Nettle. It has always been for you, really, that I have written this account; and so I must record that fact with all the rest, and what I remember of our conversation. The Short Sun was setting in a glory of scarlet and gold, and you brought two blankets. We spread one on the sand, though it was not really damp where I had sat down to write, and you sat beside me, and we wrapped the other around us. You asked whether I was happy now.

"Very happy," I said. "While I was away-even when I was at the West Pole with Pig-I thought that if I came home without Silk I would be wretched. How wrong I was!"

Then I thought that you would ask me about Pig, and I was prepared to tell you everything about him; but you said, "Tell me this. If Silk had returned with you, what would he do?"

I replied, "He would smile and bless us and our children, surely." I said much more of the same kind, much of it foolish. But the significant thing (or so it seems to me) was said by Oreb, who croaked, "Silk here!" and "Here Silk!" over and over again until I told him to be quiet. He was wrong, of course, though it would be far, far better if he were right. Silk is behind us, in the Whorl. I feel his presence just the same.

Everyone has gone to bed, including me. Everyone except Oreb, that is, and I have sent Oreb away.

I slept beside you for a few hours, and woke. Even Jahlee was asleep; she will have to hunt in a day or two, I know. I was afraid I would wake you-you, most of all. Here in the mill I will not disturb you. I have lit the old lamp, and am writing at the little table where I kept our accounts.

For an hour or so I walked alone along the beach, listening for her song.

Up there, I wrote that Silk is behind us. Well, so he is. But when I myself was in that whorl which we have put behind us, Nettle, Master Xiphias walked beside me for a time.

He is dead, of course. He went to fight the Trivigauntis, and it is likely they killed him. If they did not, the twenty-two years now past surely have; he was an elderly man when I fetched him to the Calde's Palace for Silk and asked him about swordcraft. Yet he was there and he is here, because he is in my memory and yours. "What would Silk do?" you asked. What could he? Not merely for us (in all honesty, you and I no longer matter) but for New Viron? I told Capsicum that an evil people can never have a good government.

Silk would pray, of course.

Jahlee is dead. She died in Nettle's arms.

I killed her.

Nettle came in while I was praying. I heard the rattle of the latch and the opening of the door, cut short my prayers, and rose; and it was she. We talked, at first here in the mill and afterward sitting on the beach in the Greenlight, trying to find the Whorl among the stars. We told each other about a great many things; at some later time I may set them down, or some of them.

You fell asleep. I laid you on the sand and went into the house for blankets, thinking that I would cover you and sit beside you until you woke. Maytera was awake, and I knelt at her side for perhaps two minutes while we spoke in whispers.

When I went outside again with the blankets, I thought you had gone. That is the simple truth. Not knowing what else to do, I walked toward the place where we had been sitting. The shadow that had covered you moved, and I saw her face.

I called your name, and you woke and screamed. The azoth was in my waistband, but I did not use it. I struck Jahlee with my fists, and when she fell I kicked her like Auk. A day may come when I can forgive myself for that.

I cannot bring myself to write the details. Everyone who had been in the cabin came pouring out, Babbie first, followed by Hide with a slug gun. There was a great confusion; and I, not knowing that Jahlee was dying, I said only that she had gone into convulsions. I carried her inside and made everyone get out.

They left-or everyone save Maytera did, and I thought she might be useful as a nurse-but you soon returned with the box of bandages and salves we keep in the mill. I had laid Jahlee on our bed; she was writhing in a way that showed very plainly that she had no bones. She had never screamed, and spoke only when you took her in your arms. Then she told you that she had intended to kill you, and that I had been right to strike her.

"He won't do it again," you promised her.

I carried the candle to her bedside. It was as though the face of a beautiful woman had been molded in wax, and the heat of the flame were softening it; but the flame was death.

"I wanted him so long... Did you tell her about Krait, Rajan?"

I shook my head.

You said, "He told me he'd adopted a boy shortly after he and Sinew left, but the boy was killed on Green."

"Krait was one of us."

You stared at her, and I said, "She is an inhuma."

Jahlee was struggling for breath, and after a minute or two Maytera whispered, "I don't think she'll talk any more."

You were still holding Jahlee, but you were staring at me. "You brought an inhuma here? You couldn't have!"

"I thought she would do no harm." It was hard to meet your eyes, but I met them. "Krait and I..." I could not explain, although I have tried to in another book, saying in cold, black words how much we hated each other, and how much we meant to each other.

It was as if a corpse spoke from the coffin. "Krait was my son. And Sinew's. You guessed, didn't you, Rajan?"

I nodded. "You knew too much about it, my daughter. And you were too concerned to learn more."

"You think we don't care..."

"About your children?" I started to deny it, then realized that I have always assumed they did not.

"You do, so we must."

There was a silence. I felt certain she would not speak again. Her face was the color of chalk beneath the tinted creams and powders and rouge.

You asked, "What did she mean?" and I answered, "To pass among us, they imitate us-even our emotions. Most of their spawn are eaten by fish while they are still very young."

"Rani?" Jahlee gasped. And again, "Rani?"

Maytera told you, "She means, you I think."

You said, "She tried to kill me. I don't want to talk to her." Yet you held her still.

Something like a smile touched Jahlee's lips. "He had so many, Rani, in Gaon. I couldn't kill them all. Lean closer."

As if compelled, you did.

"Without blood, our children have no minds."

I shouted, "Don't!"

"Closer, Rani. It's a great secret."

"You're betraying your own kind," I told her.

"I hate my kind. Listen, please, Rani."

"Yes," you whispered. "I hear you."

Maytera touched my hand, and I knew her gesture meant, So do I; but I did not send her away.

"We take their minds from your blood. Their minds are yours. Here, long ago, I drank the blood of your small son. Krait was my son, the only one who lived with the mind it took from yours."

She gasped, and when she spoke again I could scarcely hear her, although I bent as close as you did. "Without you, we are only animals. Animals that fly, and drink blood by night."

Then she died, and you, Nettle, will die too, if the inhumi learn what you have learned from her. Indeed, you may die anyway if they learn I am here; they will surely assume I have told you.

I should not have come back.

[This is the end of the record that he wrote for our mother in his own hand.]

Chapter 16. HARI MAU

The Prolocutor's prothonotary entered, bowed obsequiously, and handed the Prolocutor a folded paper. When he had gone, that small and pudgy worthy said, "I implore your pardon. In all probability it is a matter of no importance whatsoever."

The white-haired man he addressed smiled and nodded. "I am flattered Your Cognizance has so much confidence in me."