Gene Wolfe - The Fifth Head of Cerberus

“Two today,” someone said behind Sandwalker. “The people are delighted.” He turned and saw Eastwind, who pushed past him and stalked away with the high-kneed hair-heron gait. “Back to the pit,” one of the guards announced, and with Cedar Branches Waving and Sweetmouth, Sandwalker turned and splashed back toward shore, the Shadow children following. He had just left the water when he heard the snap of breaking bone, and turning saw that two of the Shadow children were dead, their heads lolling as marshmen carried them away. He stopped, angry in a way he had not been at the other deaths. A guard pushed him.

“Why did you kill them?” Sandwalker said. “They weren’t even part of the ceremony.”

Two grabbed him and bent his arms behind him. One said: “They’re not people. We can eat them anytime.” The other added, “Big feast tonight.”

“Let him go.” It was Eastwind, who took his elbow. “No use fighting, Brother. They’ll just break your arms.”

“All right.” Sandwalker’s shoulders had been close to breaking already. He swung his arms back and forth.

Eastwind was saying: “We usually sacrifice only one at a time—that’s why the people are excited now. With the two men and the two others there will be enough for a large piece for everyone, so they’re happy.”

“The stars were kind, then,” said Sandwalker.

“When the stars are kind,” Eastwind answered in a flat voice that was yet like an echo of his own, “we don’t send the river any messengers at all.”

They had reached the pit before Sandwalker realized it was near. He strode to the edge determined to climb down rather than be pushed. Someone, a small figure that seemed to hold a smaller one, was already there; he stopped in surprise, was straight-armed from behind, and tumbled ignominiously down.

The newcomer was Seven Girls Waiting. That night the Old Wise One and the other remaining Shadow children sang the Tear Song for their dead friends. Sandwalker lay on his back and tried to read the stars to see if the message old Bloodyfinger and Leaves-you-can-eat had carried had had any effect, but he was not learned and they seemed only the familiar constellations. Seven Girls Waiting had spent the day telling all of them how she had followed him down the river and been caught, and the sorrow he had felt at first in seeing her had turned, as he listened, to a kind of weak anger at her foolishness. Seven Girls Waiting herself seemed more happy than frightened, having found in the pit substitutes for the companions who had deserted her. Sandwalker reminded himself that she had not seen the drownings.

Who could read the stars? The night was clear, and sisterworld, now much waned, had not yet risen; they shone in glory. Perhaps old Bloodyfinger could have, but he had never asked. He reminded himself that this was why the pit was called The Other Eye. Somewhere across the river Eastwind and Lastvoice would be studying the stars as well. Fretfully he rolled from side to side: the next time he would dive into the river and try to escape. Free, he might be able to help the others. If there remained others after the next time. He thought of Cedar Branches Waving being pushed beneath the surface (her face seen in agony through the ripples), then tried to put the thought aside. He wished that Seven Girls Waiting or Sweetmouth would come and lie with him and distract him, but they lay side by side, hands outstretched and touching, both asleep. The Tear Song rose and fell, then faded and died; Sandwalker sat up. “Old Wise One! Can you read the stars?”

The Old Wise One came acrass the sand to him. He seemed fainter than ever, but taller, as if his illusion had been stretched. “Yes,” he said. “Although I do not always read there what your kind do.”

“Can you walk among them?”

“I can do whatever I choose.”

“Then what do they say? Will more die?”

“Tomorrow? The answer is both no and yes.”

“What does that mean? Who?”

“Someone dies every day,” the Old Wise One answered. And then, “I am what you call a Shadow child, remember. If the stars speak to me it is of our own affairs they speak. But it is all foolish divination—the truth is what one believes.”

“Will it be Cedar Branches Waving?”

The Old Wise One shook his head. “Not she. Not tomorrow.”

Sandwalker lay back, sighing with relief. “I won’t ask about the others. I don’t want to know.”

“That is wise.”

“Then why walk among stars?”

“Why indeed? We have just sung the Tear Song for our dead. You were full of thoughts of the others who died, so we are not angry that you did not join—but the Tear Song is better than such thoughts.”

“It won’t bring them back.”

“Would we wish it?”

“Wish what?” Sandwalker found, with a certain wrench of surprise, that he was angry, and angry at himself for being so. When the Old Wise One did not answer immediately he added, “What are you talking about?” The constellations flashed with icy contempt, ignoring them both.

“I only meant,” the Old Wise One said slowly, “if our song could call back Hatcher and Hunter, would we sing? Returned from death, would we not kill them?” Sandwalker noticed that the Old Wise One seemed younger than he had previously. Ghosts were strange.

And easily offended he remembered. “I’m sorry if I sounded discourteous,” he said as politely as he could. “Hatcher and Hunter were your friends’ names? They were my friends too if I am a shadowfriend, and Bloodyfinger, and Leaves-you-can-eat. We should do something for them too—sit around and tell stories about them until late—but this doesn’t seem like a place where you can do it. I don’t feel good.”

“I understand. You yourself resemble the man you called Bloodyfinger to a marked degree.”

“His mother’s mother and my mother’s were probably sisters or something.”

“You are looking at my comrades, the other Shadow children. Why?”

“Because I never thought of Shadow children having names. I only thought of them as the Shadow children.”

“I know.” The Old Wise One was staring at the sky again, reminding Sandwalker that he had said he could walk there. After what seemed a long time (Sandwalker lay down again, turning on his belly and resting his head on his arms, where he could smell, faintly, the salt tang of his own flesh), he said, “Their names are Foxfire, Swan, and Whistler.”

“Just like people.”

“We had no names before men came out of the sky,” the Old Wise One said dreamily. “We were mostly long, and lived in holes between the roots of trees.”

Sandwalker said, “I thought we were the ones.”

“I am confused,” the Old Wise One admitted. “There are so many of you now and so few of us.”

“You hear our songs?”

“I am made of your songs. Once there was a people using their hands—when they had hands—only to take food; there came among them another who crossed from star to star. Then it was found that the first heard the songs of the second and sent them out again—greater, greater, greater than before. Then the second felt their songs more strongly in all their bones—but touched, perhaps, by the first. Once I was sure I knew who the first were, and the second; now I am no longer sure.”

“And I am no longer sure of what it is you’re saying,” Sandwalker told him.

“Like a spark from the echoless vault of emptiness,” the Old Wise One continued, “the shining shape slipped steaming into the sea…” But Sandwalker was no longer listening. He had gone to lie between Sweetmouth and Seven Girls Waiting, reaching out a hand to each.

The next morning, before dawn, the liana was flung down the side of the pit again. This time there was no need for the marsh men to come down into The Other Eye to drive the hill-people up. Someone shouted from the rim and they came, though slowly and unwillingly. At the top Eastwind stood waiting, and Sandwalker, who had climbed with the three remaining Shadow children, asked him, “How were the stars last night?”