Watson, Ian - Black Current 01 (27 page)

 
          
Tamath
pursed her lips. "Yaleen has a . . . special . . . reason for wanting to
be close. It may well be that we all
need
her to see what happens . . . Hmm, yes, we'll probably sail."

 
          
Hali
stared at us incredulously. She didn't know my past history. By the time the
Blue Guitar
had arrived in Spanglestream
for the conclave, six weeks had passed since I'd swum ashore. The waves of
gossip had slackened into tiny ripples.

 
          
"The
crew won't want to get anywhere near
that!”
Hali protested.

 
          
"I'll
speak to them.
Tomorrow.
Or tonight.
In a nutshell, Yaleen here has crossed the current twice already. It knows her.
She spent many weeks on the west bank. And she got back."

 
          
"Oh,"
said Hali. She looked hurt.
Because Tamath hadn't taken her
into her confidence earlier.
"Oh." If I'd been in Hali's
boots, that
was about all that I could have found to say.

 
          
Hali
was deeply hurt; and because of this I could see she was very sore at me.

 
          
Tamath
turned to me. "Isn't the current at its lowest ebb as the year changes?
Surely it should have grown
more
sluggish with the drug—not less?"

 
          
"Yes,
the drug would make it sluggish, at first. Then it would speed up." Just
as Marcialla had speeded up, rushing frenetically about her cabin . . .
"It would go berserk."

 
          
Excluded
from this exchange by ignorance, Hali looked even more resentful.

 
          
As
the afternoon wore on, more signals came our way.

           
Ex Firelight.
Head passing.
River clear
downstream. . . .

 
 
         
Ex
Melonby. . . .

           
We might have stayed up half the
night watching for signals— latterly, lantern flashes—spelling the retreat of
the head upstream. However, Tamath ordered us all below quite early. The next
night would be a long and risky one. She explained why; and stunned the crew
with her explanation.

 
          
Going
on for ten the following night, we were readying the
Blue Guitar
to sail, working by the light of our own lanterns and
those on the dockside.

 
          
Dispute
had broken out (not least from Hali) as to whether to risk a fine schooner in
this enterprise. A little tub would be less of a loss, if loss there was to be.
Though equally, a little tub might more easily founder when
that living hill rushed by.

 
          
Two
of our crew had deserted, though Tamath was only willing to consider them as
temporarily missing ashore.

 
          
And
I was in the peculiar ambiguous position of suddenly not being very popular,
since I was the reason for this nocturnal jaunt to danger—while at the same
time I was something of a miracle. From the way some of my boatsisters spoke,
you'd have thought I was personally responsible for the present misconduct of
the current.

 
          
We
cast off. Slowly we sailed out under light canvas, to take up station.

 
          
We
were about halfway out when, in the darkness to the north, the powerful
signal-lantern began to wink. Tamath was loitering near me on the fore-deck. I
had been relieved of my ordinary duties; who could say what my extraordinary
ones might be?

 
          
Urgent alert.
Ex Verrino Spire, I spelled.

           
It was the first time I'd seen such
a call-sign. So some accommodation had been reached between the river guild
and the Observers.
Unless this was a spontaneous message,
breaking into the chain of light.

 
          
. . . Repeat onward.
Explosion
in town.
Fire.
Screaming.
Confusion.
Quayside appears under attack. Large rafts
landing ex river.
From West.
Alert all towns: arm with
any weapons to defend shore. . . .

           
Tamath clutched my arm savagely,
hurting me. She seemed to imagine her fingertips were pressing words into me.

 
          
"It's
the Sons," said I, wincing. "They've invaded
Verrino.
. . .
"

 
          
Sick
at heart, I visualized the Sons of Adam rampaging through that lovely town,
where in their eyes every woman was a witch.

           
"Arm with any weapons"
indeed!
With knives and needles?
With
pitchforks and mattocks?

 
          
Tamath
finally found her voice. "The head can only have passed Verrino fifteen
hours ago! How could the West have rafts ready?
And men, and
weapons?
Unless Edrick's plan worked! Unless he did poison the current!
Damn you, Yaleen, for this thing you've done.
Damn you
. You told them how. And you've destroyed our lives!"

 
          
And
at Verrino quay were berthed real river-going vessels, for the Sons to seize
and press into service. . . .

 
          
Of
a sudden our world was cut in half.

 
          
It
all seemed so abominably unfair. Only a while ago the whole river and my life
had stretched before me, full of tantalizing distant towns, vistas, bright
adventures, friends, lovers, boats, dreams. Anything whatever that was good,
within the changelessly rich fabric.

 
          
It
was all over now, forever, before it had really begun. I felt as though a giant
hand had abruptly doused the sun and stars, and drained the river dry.

 
          
Because
I felt so dry, I wept.

 
          
"Don't
be such a baby!" sneered Tamath. "What way is this to greet your only
friend, who's rushing to visit you? You'll need to see straight, to pat the
worm's head."

 
          
"Damn
it," I gasped. "This is
grief!
Don't you understand? How many of us have ever known such grief before?"

 
          
"Congratulations,
Yaleen. You're the bringer of grief." How bitter Tamath sounded.

 
          
And
so the
Blue Guitar
continued onwards
towards my tryst with the head of the worm; while three hundred leagues
distant, a war had begun.

 
 
          
For
a while I'd been hearing a twanging sound. At first it was like singing in my
ears. As the hour of our rendezvous drew closer, the noise grew louder; though
never so loud that it could have been heard from the shore, I don't suppose,
unless you placed your ear directly on the water.

 
          
It
was the sound of a single enormous chord being strummed; it was the hum of the
current winding itself back elastically towards the Far Precipices.

 
          
The
night sky was two-thirds full of stars; the rest was cloud. With our lanterns
doused and our eyes adjusted to the darkness, visibility was about fifteen
hundred spans.

 
          
Visibility?
Ah, that's taking liberties with the word! We
would hardly be able to spot details much beyond two hundred spans— and only
really when the worm's head sped by at its closest.

 
          
I
was about to add, "so long as you had the reflexes of a cat". But we
used to have a cat back home in Pecawar. Opinion has it that cats can see
things that are invisible to human eyes. Well, it isn't true. Half the time
cats are simply looking in the wrong direction. . . .

 
          
When
that head rushed past, we would have about fifteen seconds to see it, but only
two or three seconds of clear observation.
Unless, of course,
the head intended to pause and chat with me.
And this I rather doubted.

 
          
I
was risking lives for a whim—and Tamath was clutching at straws. I already knew
that I was going to disappoint her; and anger her more. I was on the point of
swallowing my pride and begging her, "Let's call it off. Let's go
back." But this would also be dishonest. What, opt out at the last
moment? And thus shift the blame? I could tolerate Tamath's hatred (I thought),
but not her contempt. Not hers; she didn't deserve to scorn me.

 
          
Ah,
my famous self-esteem again! Why should I flay myself for it? But I did. It
seemed I couldn't win.

 
          
"Here
it comes!" cried Hali from the mizzen top. Hali wouldn't allow anyone but
herself aloft. I hoped she was lashed securely. I clung to the rail, peering
aft.

 
          
A
huge bow-wave tossed the
Blue Guitar.
Our boat heeled to starboard. Never had a deck sloped so crazily. From
amidships came the noise of skidding, crashing and cries.

 
          
And
in the midst of this: a dark enormity, a minor hill raced by, as if shouldering
our schooner from its slopes. A mound of inky jelly, stiff as muscle . . . For
an instant in the starlight I saw its face, but an instant was enough.

 
          
I'd
faced a giant croaker in the jungles: a leathery boulder with bulging eyes and a
beaky gash of a mouth. I'd seen gargoyles jutting from the gutters of the
Donjon in Pleasegod: twisted faces, perhaps modelled on people burnt alive.

 
          
This
was worse. The gape of its mouth was a slash through the tissue of the hill,
wide enough open to gulp a skiff and crew; a mouth which dripped thick strings
of glue. A ledge of a chin scuffed the water below. And above: ridges of bulges
and pustules—then two hooded eyes. These eyes were set far apart: long,
triangular and white. In them was no expression, no life; as though the salt of
the sea had caked them over.

 
          
A
face sculpted by a lunatic! More awful that it should have such a face, than
have no face at all. Surely the worst thing in the world would be to stray
anywhere near that mouth, those eyes. The creature was a great grotesque
tadpole: simply a head, with a tail hundreds of leagues long. . . .

 
          
Already
it was gone again into the night.

 
          
No
sooner had the
Blue Guitar
righted
itself than we were heaving down into the gulf to port. The boat jarred
shudderingly as it met a wall of water rushing back to fill the trough.
Something smashed to the deck from aloft. I feared for Hali. (Or was it myself
I feared for, if it was she who had tumbled down?)

 
          
* * *

 
          
In
fact we had snapped our spanker gaff.

           
Presently our lanterns were re-lit.
Just as well they'd been doused, or we might have caught fire. And presently
Tamath counted the cost.

 
          
"So
Zemia broke her ankle. And Challi cracked her skull—let's hope
it's
only concussion. Then there's the spanker gaff—"

 
          
"Maybe
the wood was rotten inside." It probably was, but why didn't I keep my big
mouth shut?

 
          
Tamath
rounded on me. "Don't you
dare
speak of anything on my boat being
rotten!
Unless it's yourself!"

 
          
A
whimper of pain mounted to a sudden shriek; Zemia's ankle was being set.

 
          
"I'm
sorry they got hurt," I said.
"Truly sorry."

 
          
"Are
you indeed? That's very small beer when people are being hacked to pieces in
Verrino! So what did you learn, Yaleen?"

 
          
What
had I learned, indeed? Once again the image of a tadpole came to me.
The huge head, the inordinately long tail.

 
          
"I
think . . . maybe it's about to change. Like, yes, like a tadpole.
Which has no further use for its tail.
"

 
          
"You
think," she mocked. "And of course by sheer coincidence, just when it
decides to 'change', those bloody Sons decide to attack us."

 
          
To
this, I had no answer.

 
          
"Well,
what wise thoughts did it communicate?"

 
          
"None,"
I had to admit.

 
          
"None,"
she sneered.

 
          
"Mind
you, last time it spoke I was right inside its body."

 
          
"So
maybe this time we ought to have tossed you overboard, with a line attached!
As bait for the worm's brain."
And away she stalked.

 
          
We
spent the remainder of that night in midstream on deep anchor. This was the
first time any boat had anchored quite so far out; but our hooks caught on the
riverbed with a link of chain to spare. I lay in my bunk during those dark
hours like an unhappy, chilly plank. I was sure that I didn't sleep a wink;
though I somehow found myself waking later on to the light of dawn.

 
          
When
we were hoisting sail that morning, a signal flashed that the worm's head had
passed Tambimatu at seven o'clock. . . .

 
          
* * *

 
          
The
Blue Guitar
headed back to Jangali,
where the two crewwomen who had deserted slipped back on board again before the
day was out.
In time for supper, to be exact.
Tamath
said nothing to them about their absence, and pretended not to notice.

 
          
But
neither did she broadcast her opinion that it was I who was responsible for the
invasion—otherwise the mood might have turned really ugly. As it was, I only
had Boatswain Hali's sullen enmity to contend with. And Tamath's controlled
hatred. And some sour looks from other women, who took Zemia's injury
personally. Challi had woken up with nothing worse than a headache; and she
wasn't the sort to harbour a grudge.

 
          
Incidentally,
the spanker gaff
had
been a bit
rotten at the point where it snapped. It ought to have been replaced, not held
together with paint.

 
          
Much happened during the next few days, though to begin with little
of it happened in Jangali.
We learned of events thanks to signals from
Tambimatu, and from points north to the Spire at Verrino.

 
          
(What
did
occur in Jangali was: anxious
crowds gathering on the quay, flurries of panic, rumour rampant, and a
besieging of boats every time a signal tower flashed—since shorelubbers
couldn't read the signals. The quaymistress soon appointed a herald to proclaim
newly-logged messages; and then to pin up the texts on a board in the market
place. I don't know that this did a great deal to restore daily business to
normal.)

 
          
From
Tambimatu we learned that the worm's head had ended up jammed in that rocky
arch below the Precipices. The head now occupied that point of exit and entry
like some ghastly gateway, some portal of black flesh—with its drooling mouth
agape, its white eyes staring blindly. The guild had sent the ketch with no
name to inspect; thus the crew reported.

 
          
Maybe
the worm's head had grown in size during the millennia since it first emerged,
and now it was too large to slip back inside the mountain. Maybe the bowels of
the mountain were already packed solid with its body, leaving no more space
within.

 
          
Whether
it was still alive, or dead and slowly corrupting, who could tell?

 
          
From
Verrino we learned that the Spire was still in friendly hands. What the
Observers saw from their vantage point obviously disinclined them to throw in
their lot with the invaders. They signalled that the Spire could withstand an
eight-week siege; longer on starvation rations.

 
          
On
the day after the invasion the signal towers north and south of Verrino had
both been burnt to the ground; news which scared us all. Why bum something
which could be seized and used? Unless the guild signallers had held out, and
been burnt along with then- towers. . . .

 
          
Yet
in the confusion of that first violent night one yawl had somehow evaded
capture and set sail. This yawl took up station upriver. After the towers went
up in flames, the yawl could still relay signals from the Spire, southwards. No
such facility existed to the north of Verrino, thus all contact was lost with
the whole stretch of river from Sarjoy to Umdala. Three whole days passed
before a brig set sail from Verrino to bear down upon that yawl. The brig was
crewed
by women, but ineptly so—at least until one of the
women was thrown overboard by the men in charge, with her hands and ankles
bound. Then the brig's performance improved dramatically. The yawl had to flee
upstream; all contact with the Spire was broken.

 
          
During
those three days the Observers reported rafts being rowed back to the west,
then returning with more armed men. Had the Sons been able, obviously they
would have pressed real boats into service at once; but it had taken them till
the third day to round up a scratch crew for the yawl.
So
most of the boat crews must have deserted to hide in the town.
It might
have been even wiser to scatter far inland—though I don't know that this would
have been
my
first instinct, or any
riverwoman's; and soon, of course, the chance was gone.

 
          
From
aloft the Observers spied
murders,
and rapes by the
raggy soldiery.

 
          
But
then men wearing robes arrived from the west; Edrick's colleagues, and maybe
the man himself. Vicious incidents tailed off quickly, in full view at least.
Corpses were piled and burnt. Looting ceased. Cordons and roadblocks were set
up. Patrols prowled the streets, enforcing order. Perhaps the western
warleaders deliberately let their
soldiers
storm
around to begin with, to terrorize the town, so that the people of Verrino
would feel grateful for the contrast later on. Or maybe the leaders hadn't
risked crossing over till the terrain was secure. By the time we lost touch
with Verrino, at any rate, an uneasy calm reigned. As yet, the Sons hadn't
piled faggots to bum people alive individually. . . .