Gene Wolfe - Return to the Whorl

"Perhaps. In some cases, at least. I must now ask you to acceptto ask you, Sergeant Azijin, and you, Legerman Vlug, particularly-to accept the fact that it can, and does, leave it at other times as well."

I waited for their protests, but none came.

"Let me illustrate my point. A man has a house where he lives for some years with his wife. They are very happy, this man and his wife. They love each other, and whatever else may go amiss, they have each other. Then the man's wife dies, and he leaves the house in which he has had so much happiness. It has become abhorrent to him. Unless the Outsider, the God of gods, restores her to life, he has no wish to see that house ever again. Am I making myself clear?"

Vlug said, "So I think," and Azijin, "To me not."

"I am speaking of the spirit departing the body at death. The body is the house I mentioned, and life was the wife who made it a place of warmth and comfort."

Azijin nodded. "Ah."

"Perhaps her husband goes to the gods, as Legerman Leeuw suggested, perhaps only out into darkness. For the moment, it doesn't matter. My point is that he leaves the home she made for him, never to return."

"Bird go," Oreb declared. He had been hopping around the table, cadging bits of food. "Go Silk."

I told him, "If you mean you wish to die when I do, Oreb, I sincerely hope you don't. In Gaon they tell of dying men who kill some favorite animal, usually a horse or a dog, so it will accompany them in death; and under the Long Sun their rulers went so far as to have their favorite wives burned alive on their funeral pyres. When I die, I sincerely hope no friend or relative of mine will succumb to any such cruel foolishness."

Zwaar, who had been silent until then, said, "When the spirit goes a man dies, I think."

I shook my head. "He dies because you shot him through the heart. Or because he suffered some disease or was kicked by a horse, as a wise friend once suggested to me. But you bring up an important point-that the spirit is not life, nor is life the spirit. And another, that the two together are one. A husband is not his wife, no more than a wife is her husband; but the two in combination are one. What I was going to say was that though the man in my little story left his house once and for all when his wife died, he had left it many times previously. He had gone out to weed their garden, perhaps, or gone to the market to buy shoes. In those cases he left it to return."

Hide said helpfully, "The spirit can leave the same way, can't it, Father?"

"Exactly. We have all had daydreams. We imagine we're sailing the new boat we're in fact building, for example, or riding a prancing horse we don't actually possess. Most of the dreams we have at night are of the same kind, and `dreams' is the right name for them. There are others, however. Dreams-we call them that, at least-which are in fact memories returned to the sleeping body by the spirit, which left it for a while and went elsewhere."

Azijin was grinning, although he looked a bit uncomfortable; Vlug, Leeuw, and Zwaar heard me with wide eyes and open mouths.

"That is what befell you and Private Vlug," I told Azijin. "Your sprits departed while you slept, and went to sleep in another place. There Vlug's spirit-"

I rose. "Excuse me for a moment. I took off Oreb's ring while I was cooking and laid it on a shelf in the kitchen."

Before they could protest, I hurried out. The ring was where I had left it earlier when I decided I might require some such excuse. I put it on and went through the kitchen and into the private quarters of the innkeeper and his wife, finding him just struggling into his trousers.

"I heard you were ill," I said, "and thought it might be wise for someone to look in on you. If you and your wife would like a bite to eat, I would be happy to prepare something."

"So weak we are, mysire." He sat down upon the conjugal bed. "Thank you. Thank you. Anything."

I explained matters to Azijin and his troopers, and Hide and I looked after the innkeeper and his wife. As I feared, both have been bitten by Jahlee. They should recover, provided she does not return for a few days. She is still asleep at present, although it is well past noon. "Girl sleep," reports Oreb, who just flew up to our room to look; he and I are agreed that it is best to leave it so. I have arranged the blankets so that her face is scarcely visible, and of course the shutters are closed. Azijin and Vlug promise not to disturb her.

Azijin has decided not to travel today. "The cause of justice and good order," he says, "we serve as well in comfort here as by in this snow dying and the horses crippling." I second him in that with all my heart.

The ring will no longer fit my thumb, which seems very odd. I have been wearing it on the third finger.

He felt Pig's hand close on his shoulder. "Hooses, bucky. Trust ter Pig. Hooses Nall 'round."

At that moment, he was too tired to wonder how Pig knew. "Then let's stop here and ask, if they'll talk to us."

"Pockets runnin' h'over wi' cards, bucky?"

"No," he said. "Not running over."

"Nor me. Nor H'oreb, Pig wagers. Got a card, do yer, H'oreb? Yer do nae!"

"Poor bird."

"Yet good people can be moved by charity, sometimes, and all we want is a place to rest and a little information."

"H'all yer want." The tap-tap-tap of Pig's sheathed sword was moving away, as was Pig's towering bulk, visible in the light of the glowing skylands. "H'oreb's hungry though. H'ain't yer, H'oreb? A bite a' een, noo. Dinna say yer never Nate nae een, H'oreb. Pig knows yer breed."

Oreb fluttered to Pig's shoulder. "Fish heads?"

"Aye! Comin', bucky?" Pig's leather-covered scabbard rapped wood.

Silence followed, save for the tapping of his own staff and the shuffle of his feet. "Yes," he said. "I had misjudged your position a bit. How did you know there were houses here? I couldn't see them myself until you told me they were present."

"Feel 'em." The scabbard rapped the door again. "Feel 'em h'on me clock."

It seemed impossible that they had reached the outskirts of Viron already. "Are there many?"

"Both sides a' ther road. 'Tis Nall Pig can tell yer."

"It's remarkable just the same."

"Blind, aye. H'oreb can tell yer more. How many, H'oreb? Let's hear yer count 'em."

"Many house." Oreb's bill rattled.

"There yer have h'it." The leather-covered scabbard pounded the door. "'Tis listenin' does h'it, bucky. Most dinna. Take 'em h'inside. Think they hears us knockin' sae polite? If Pig was ter kick ther door h'in, they'd have ter listen, wouldn't they? They would." A explosive thump was presumably Pig's boot striking the door.

"Don't! Please don't. We can go on to the next house."

"Aye." Another violent kick, so loud that it seemed it must surely attract the attention of the godling at the bridge, a full league off.

From inside a voice called, "Go away!"

"Soon Was she's stove h'in," Pig rumbled. "Gae smash h'in ther next. Winna take ter lang." To prove his point, he followed the words with another tremendous kick.

A woman's frightened voice sounded from inside the house.

"What's she sayin'? Yer make h'it h'out, bucky?"

"No." The end of his staff had found one of Pig's massive boots. Raising his voice slightly, he said, "Open the door, please. I swear we won't harm you."

Golden light appeared at a crack, followed by the scrape and thump of a heavy bar lifted from its fittings and set aside.

"Ah," Pig said, "maire like, 'tis."

The door opened a thumb's width, then swung back as Pig dropped to one knee and threw his shoulder against it. The woman inside screamed.