Gene Wolfe - On Blue's waters

Even that was not all. His Cognizance Patera Remora, with whom I hoped to speak again when I reached the town, had a copy of the Chrasmologic Writings he had brought from Viron-it was the book upon which I had sworn my oath. That would give us a third text much longer than the first two; and by printing and selling selections from it, we would not only perpetuate and preserve what foreigners here call the Vironese Faith but propagate it.

It was a thought that gave me pause. If, as so many of us thought, the gods we had known in the Whorl were not to be found here, the Vironese Faith was a lie undeserving of my credence, or anyone’s. For the ten thousandth time I wished with all my heart that Silk had come with us.

I have found a kind of paint that will stick to the lens of my glasses. It may be no great relief to those to whom I speak-they swear it is not-but it is to me. Returning to this airy bedroom tonight, I admired my reflection like a girl.

When I wrote last, it was about my wish that Silk had come with us, as he had intended to do. How I wish now that I could have brought him with me to Gaon! But I was describing that terrible night on the sloop.

If I slept, Silk might appear in dream, or so I supposed, and unravel the knot of faith for me; if I continued to read, something he had said (first set down in our book by my own hand and now forgotten) might solve everything; but I was no longer sleepy, and the Short Sun was so low already that reading would soon be impossible. I baited my hook and threw it out, and sat in the stern, pondering.

It might well be that Pas and Echidna, and Scylla and her siblings, were gods only in the Long Sun Whorl. That, I felt fairly confident, had been Silk’s opinion; but Silk’s opinion had been expressed before our lander left the Whorl. It was at least possible that we had somehow brought them with us, as Remora alleged. He was certainly correct in one sense: people who had revered those gods through half a lifetime, as so many had, had carried them to Blue in their hearts.

What was it Sinew had said?

That if Pas were truly a god he could come here whenever he wished, or go anywhere. If Silk was right, and Pas did not leave the Long Sun Whorl, it could only be because he did not want to. Or (Pas had been murdered with apparent success by his wife and children, after all) because he was somehow prevented by the other gods. The same might be said of Echidna, Scylla, and the rest-but if they restrained Pas, who restrained them? It might easily be that the gods were in fact present, remaining unknown to us because we lacked the Sacred Windows through which they had spoken at home.

There was one at least whom even Silk had expected to find here. The Outsider was so called, in part at least, because he was to be found outside the whorl as well as in it. Presumably he was here, although there was no more evidence to suggest it than there was for presence of the other gods. I had prayed to him occasionally ever since we had landed, in imitation of Silk, although less and less often as I found my prayers unavailing as the years wore on, maintaining the custom of prayer at family meals because I hoped it might promote the moral development of my sons.

Hope.

That is the trouble with all prayer. Because we hope, we find success where success is not to be found. How easy it would be for me to write here that Sinew would have been worse without the empty ritual of those prayers! It may be true; but try to find an honest man anywhere who would willingly say that Sinew’s moral development ever benefited from anything.

He was brave on Green, at least, and loyal for a time.

As for the gods that Sinew proposed on the night that I left Lizard, the original gods of this whorl of Blue, I asked myself then how much power they can have possessed, and whether they would not have saved at least a few of their worshippers if they could. I know better now, of course.

When I reached New Viron I asked Remora about it, and to my surprise he took the question very seriously, his long face growing longer still while he tried again and again to push back the lank hair that persisted in falling over his high forehead to obstruct his vision. “The-ah-um,” he said, and managed to load those noises with sacred dignity. “Ah-ah-er.”

“If the gods don’t want to be worshipped, there’s no reason for them to be swayed by our prayers and sacrifices,” I argued. “Therefore, they do, if you will allow that they sometimes answer prayers, as I know you will, Your Cognizance. Granting that, they ought-”

“Hum-ha!” It had been intended as an interruption, and I stopped talking.

“Logic, hey? Yes, um, logic. You said logic like a god. In your book, hey? You had Silk say it.”

It had been an idea Silk had once expressed to me, and I thought it might well have occurred to him when he climbed the insurgents’ barricade; but I did not trouble Remora with all that.

“Your god, um, logic, betrays you.”

I told him I did not see how.

“Ah-multiplely. In diverse ways, eh? To, ah, begin. There are many-yes, many-here who, er, do not. They offer no sacrifices. Nor do they attend sacrifice, hey? Never come to the manteion. I, um, inquire when it is, um, not unwelcome, concerning private prayer and-ah-special devotions. No. None. I-ah-credit it, for the most part.”

I nodded. “So would I, Your Cognizance.”

“Not worshippers, eh? Numbers, ah, fluctuate. Well known in the Chapter back home, eh? Much piety sometimes. In, er, time of test. Trial, hey? Floods might be-ah-instanced. Fires. Plagues. Wars. Or after a theophany, hey? At others, but little.” He lifted his hand and let it fall. “Up and down, eh? You follow me?”

I nodded again.

“Suppose it dropped to, er, nought. Zero. Not a single spirit, eh? Not a one. Never here, long as I live. Um-no. But suppose. No worshippers. Might not these-ah-foreign deities which you, um, suggest take the occasion to, ah, scourge?”

“It doesn’t seem likely,” I objected

“Hum? I beg to differ. Likely enough. Only too, ah, likely, I should say. Let us continue. You, er, we assume they are-um-deceased. These Vanished People, eh? The whorl is-ah-commodious? Voluminous? Extensive. You agree?”

“I suppose it is.”

“Capital. We progress. There is another, um, factor. No skylands, eh? Only, ah, stars there, as they are called. Whorl at home bent upwards, hey? Revealed itself to, ah, the eyes. This the, er, contrary. Reverse. Bent down. You, um, arrived via water?”

“Yes,” I said, and I told him what had happened on the sloop.

“Indeed, indeed! Capital! One prayer, eh? Only one, and, er, small faith, as you confess. Concede. See what one small prayer can do.” He rocked gleefully, his blue-veined fingers gripping the armrests of his chair.

I said forcefully that if the leatherskin had come in answer to my prayer I would just as soon as the Outsider had ignored it.

“Ingratitude. Rampant everywhere.” Remora shook his head. “But we-ah-digress. Yes, digress. You came by, um, sea. This is established. You must have observed that most of this-ah-fo-reign whorl. Concealed. Not like home, eh? You conceive that its former- um-population dead, eh? Extinct. Everyone does, even, er, myself. Ask how I know, and I am-ah-constrained to respond that I do not. I, um, assume it. You-ah-similarly? Synonymously, eh?”

I nodded, wondering how to ask him what I most desired to know.

Now I must ready myself to cut the throat of a stonebuck for Echidna, and prepare my homily.

I see that I have mentioned my prayer on the sloop without saying anything substantive about it.

The truth is that I grew frightened. The Short Sun was setting without the least hint of a breeze, and the fishing line I had put out had caught nothing. With the water and food I had brought, I could spend one more day sitting in an idle boat with some comfort, but after that the matter would become serious. I had been thinking about the gods, as I have indicated already. I decided to venture a prayer. After all, if the gods I addressed did not hear it, was that my fault or theirs? The only question was which I should address, and I soon found that I could make convincing arguments for three.