Gene Wolfe: On Blue's waters

It has been four days, I believe, and could be five. I stumbled upon a hovel (I do not know what else to call it) in the forest. Two children are living alone there: they call each other Brother and Sister, and if they have ever had other names they do not know them. They showed me where they had buried their mother.

They took us in and shared what food they had, which was very little. They collect berries and fruits, as Seawrack used to, and Brother hunts with a throwing stick. At first they wanted to kill Oreb; afterward he entertained them.

With their knife-a sharp flint-I cut a likely stick and made a fishing spear like the one that He-pen-sheep’s son had used. Brother took me to the stream from which they got their water, and I was able to spear fish for them. “You must stand very still,” I cautioned him. “Make no noise at all until the fish come near enough, and don’t move a muscle. Then strike like lightning.”

My own lightning days are past, I suppose, if they ever came at all. I missed, and Brother laughed (I was laughing too) and ran away. Sister came and watched wide-eyed, and I speared a fish for her that we both called big, although it was not. A little farther down there was a good big pool, and there I speared another. I let her try after that, and she got two, one of them the largest of the four we caught. Brother had taken a bird almost as big as Oreb, so we had a feast.

In that way whole days flew past. I cut Sister’s long, dark hair and wove a little cord of it, and set a snare along a game trail the boy showed me, recalling the demonstration snare that Sinew made years ago to show Nettle, in which he had caught our cat.

When I left yesterday they followed me, but this morning they are gone. I hope they get home safely, and to tell the truth I was afraid I would draw the inhumi to them, although I have seen none since that terrible night on the Nadi.

Very little paper remains.

Last night I dreamed that Pig, Hound, and I ran into an abandoned house to get out of the rain. It seemed familiar, and I set off to explore it. I saw a clock-I think the very large one that stood in the corner of my bedroom in Gaon-and the hands were on twelve. I knew that it was noon, not midnight, although the windows were as black as pitch. I turned away, the clock opened, and Olivine stepped out of it. “This is where you lived with… This is where you lived with Hyacinth,” she told me. Then Hyacinth herself was beside me in sunshine. Together we were chopping nettles from around the hollyhocks. Hyacinth was fourteen or fifteen, and already breathtakingly lovely; but in some fashion I knew that she was terribly ill and would soon die. She smiled at me and I woke. For a long time the only thing I could think of was that Hyacinth was dead.

It has faded now, somewhat; and I am writing this by the first light coming through the leaves.

I have re-read most of this. Not all, but most. There are many things I ought to have written less about, and a few about which I should have written more. Hari Mau’s smile, how it lights his face, how cheerful he is when everything is bad and getting worse.

Nothing about the first days of the war, before I was wounded. Or not nearly enough.

Nothing about my dream of an angry and vindictive Scylla who talked like Oreb, the dream that woke me screaming and so terrified Brother and Sister: “Window! Window! Window!”

Nothing about the fight on the lander, and how horrible it was. The inhumi had barricaded themselves in the nose, Krait and the rest. We had to fight the ones who still believed-half a dozen. Eight or nine, I think, really. (Some wavered, coming and going.) We tried to reason with them, but won over only two. In the end we had to rush them to prevent them from joining the inhumi, and I led the rush. They were as human as we, and they may have been the best of us.

Brave, certainly. They were extremely brave, and fought with as much courage and determination as any men I have ever seen. They died thinking they were on their way back to the Whorl , and to this moment I envy them that.

If only Sinew had stayed with Seawrack as I had told him, I would have let the others fight, taking no part. He was there and would know, so I played General Mint for an audience of one, kicking off and hurtling toward them, yelling for him and the others to follow me, a big knife in each hand. I was so frightened afterward that I could not sleep, and by the time we broke into the nose it was too late anyway and we were bound for Green irrevocably.

Brother and Sister should have made me feel younger, as the girl did. I felt old instead. So much older! They see the Vanished People sometimes, they told me. Sometimes the Vanished People even help them. That is good to know.

I asked them about the Vanished Gods. They said there was one in the forest, so I told them about him. And a lot more, things that I should keep to myself. I tried to teach them how to pray, and found that they already knew although they did not have the word.

This is the last sheet.

Saw my own reflection standing in the water holding up my spear, wild white hair and empty socket, lined and worried old face. My wives in Gaon cannot have loved me, although they said they did. Chandi-it means “silver.” Chandi was playing politics, I know, yet it is no small thing to have a woman as beautiful as Chandi say she loves you.

“I’m old now, and soon must leave you, But a fairer maid I ne’er did see. Curse me not that I bereave you, I cannot stay, no more would she. These fair young girls live to deceive you, Sad experience teaches me.” I hope the Hannese girl gets home safely, and is welcomed by her family.

Little space left. I am ashamed of many things I have done, but not of how I have lived my lives. I snatched the ball and won the game. I should have been more careful, but what if I had been? What then?