Return To The Whorl Part 42

And Oreb: "Iron girl."

"With that chem, but you didn't even give her the black gown you bought her. Did you tell her where you got her eye?"

"No. Perhaps I should have told her first, and given her the gown as well; but I couldn't be sure the eye would restore her sight, and if it had not . . ." I shrugged. "Afterward she was so happy, so full of joy, and the gown would have been nothing to her." I thought of Pig, and Silk.

"So you're going to give it to her tomorrow?"

"Yes, and tell her where her eye came from. She will want to know, and has a right to know. There is not a female chem left in Viron. I asked His Cognizance, and that is what he told me. Or rather, there are none left save for the one who gave the eye. He has tried to bring her to the Prolocutor's Palace, but she will not go."

"What it is of which you speak, mysire?" Vadsig's honest blue eyes went from me to Jahlee (who looked bored), and back.

"Of chems," I told her, "and young chems a-building. There is an instinct, I think, that keeps them in one place and in hiding, until they are complete. I don't believe Olivine was aware of it; but we are generally unaware of our instincts."

Hide called Vadsig then, giving Jahlee and me a moment of privacy. I said, "When Maytera received her new eye, she said something that puzzled me, as it still does. She said, 'Oh, Scylla!' Do you know that name?"

"I don't think so."

"Because I do, you see. I even dream of her at times. It is the name of the patroness of Viron, Pas's eldest daughter. Maytera is a religious woman, and lived in Viron for centuries."

"No say," Oreb croaked; I am not sure what he meant by it.

"There really isn't any reason she shouldn't have said it, though I suspect Scylla was expunged from Mainframe some time ago. She was one of the children who rebelled against Pas."

Jahlee said, "Then it doesn't matter."

"I agree, but that's what puzzles me. It seems to me that it does, and it shouldn't. Even if Scylla hasn't ceased to exist, she certainly isn't here and has little influence. Yet it seems to me it does matter--that the word matters somehow, even if Scylla herself does not. And I don't understand why."

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 G.o.ds 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 ent.i.tled 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 gla.s.sy 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. Whorl. I feel his presence just the same. 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 Capsic.u.m 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 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. 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.