Gene Wolfe - Return to the Whorl

"To him as you say I will speak, mysire. He may us help. It may be."

"What about the man holding Jahlee, my daughter?"

"Wijzer at sea is." Beroep pointed toward the floor. "That Cijfer, his wife is. But no money she gives unless Wijzer says."

"Do you know when he might return to Dorp?"

Aanvagen's husband shook his head, and I heard her voice from the stairs. "Beroep! A bus! A hus at our door was!"

He rolled his eyes upward. "A shadow it is, mysire. Of this assured be."

My door opened, revealing Aanvagen and a slightly slimmer, slightly younger woman with the same blue eyes, fair hair, and high complexion. "A hus at our door it is. Cijfer to our door it will not allow."

When Aanvagen's husband spoke, it was with a world of skepticism in his voice. "A hus it is?"

"Yes!" Cijfer's hands indicated a beast the size of a dray horse.

I went to the door and called for Vadsig, then turned back to Aanvagen and her husband. "Those are steep stairs. I hope you won't mind if I ask your servant to help me instead of troubling you."

He said, "You my guest are, mysire."

Vadsig's voice floated up the stairwell. "What it is, mysire?"

"Open the front door, please, and leave it open. Your master agrees that you are to do as I say. It's important."

There was a lengthy pause, then the sound of Vadsig's hurrying feet.

"Beroep, am I correct in thinking that if a hus-a wild hus-has come into Dorp, someone will shoot it?"

He shook his head, and both women protested, horrified.

"They won't?"

"Bad luck it is!" This from the women in chorus.

"Superstition it is," Aanvagen's husband explained, in the tone of one who tolerates the irrational beliefs of the ignorant. "If a beast into the town it comes, misfortune it brings. Back to the woodlands we must it drive. If killed it is, the misfortune in our town remains."

I had been listening for the clatter of Babbie's hoofs on Aanvagen's wooden floors, and had not heard it. I called, "Vadsig, did you open that door as I asked you?"

She replied, but I could not understand what she said. "Tell her to come up here," Aanvagen's husband advised.

As loudly as I could, I shouted, "Come here, please, Vadsig!" and fell to coughing.

Aanvagen said, "Tea with brandy in it you need, mysire. Get it you shall. See to it I will."

"Alone we should talk," her husband muttered. "That better would be. This hus in my house you wish."

I nodded. "Yes, I do."

"Not a wild hus it is. Not a shadow either it is. A tame hus? Yours, mysire?"

I nodded again.

"Like your bird it is."

Oreb bobbed agreement. "Good bird!"

"Somewhat like him at least. My hus-his name is Babbie-does not speak, of course. But he's a clean, gentle animal. We were separated, and he seems to have gone back to the woman who gave him to me. Some time ago, she learned where I was and promised to return him."

Vadsig bustled through the doorway. "Yes, Mysire Horn?"

I said, "I simply wanted to know whether you opened the front door as I asked, Vadsig."

"Oh, yes, mysire."

"You a big animal seeing are?" Aanvagen put in.

"Yes, mistress."

"What sort of animal, Vadsig?"

"Mules, mysire. Pulling carts they are."

"A hus you seeing are?" Cijfer inquired urgently.

"A hus? Oh, no, Merfrow Cijfer."

"Did you leave the door open, Vadsig, when you came up?"

"No, mysire. Cold in the street it is."

"How long did you leave it open?"

"Till you up to come telling me are, mysire."

Oreb dropped to my shoulder, giving me a quizzical look to indicate that he would go outside and look for the hus if asked. I shook my head-unobtrusively, I hope.

Aanvagen's husband asked, "No hus you seeing are, Vadsig?"

"No, Master."

He turned to Cijfer. "A hus at my door you seeing are?"

"Yes, Beroep. Never a hus so big I see. Tusks as long as my hand they are."

"This your Babbie is?" he asked me.

"Yes, I'm quite sure it is."

"Your Babbie Vadsig hurting is?"

"I certainly don't think so."

He made a gesture of dismissal. "Vadsig, to the door again go. If a hus you see, the door open leave and us you tell. If no hus you see, the door you close and your work you do."

She ducked in a sketchy curtsy and hurried away.

Cijfer offered him the letter I had penned a few hours before, her hand shaking sufficiently to rattle the paper. "Finding this in the sleeping girl's room I am, Beroep. It reading you are? Aanvagen, too?"

They bent their heads over it.

"Your daughter she is, mysire?" Her voice trembled.

I nodded.

"Sleeping all day she is. Sleeping all night she is not. Walking she is, talking is." She turned to Aanvagen, her voice trembling. "My pictures from the walls breaking!"

Downstairs, something fell with a crash. Vadsig screamed.

Somethin' there, bucky." Pig's hand, groping through darkness that for Pig had no shadeup, found his arm and closed around it, pointed nails digging into his flesh. "Hoose, maybe."

"Do you think they might let us sleep there? I don't see any lights."

"Was nae lights ter Hound's, neither, yet said."

A short distance ahead Hound remarked, "Oil that will burn in lamps is very dear, and candles almost impossible to find at any price." After a moment he added, "I really can't say how near the city we are, but we've come a long way. I for one am ready for a rest. What about you, Horn?"

Pig released his arm, and the tapping of Pig's scabbard indicated that Pig was moving to his right. He said, "Pig's been walking, while I've done nothing but sit upon the back of this wonderfully tolerant donkey of yours. I feel sure that Pig-and my donkey-must be far more fatigued than I am."

'Wall." Pig's voice sounded nearby. "Nae winders, nor nae doors neither." There was a pause. "Here's ther gate. Wide h'open, ter."

"No gate!" Oreb informed him.

"There's a vacant mansion back there," Hound explained. "I've passed it many times. We could camp in it, if everybody's willing. It should keep off the rain, and rain's likely after this heat. How do you feel about it, Horn? Would you be willing to stop?"

"Yes." He got out the striker Tansy had given him. "I'd like to see it, if it belonged to a man named Blood. Did it?"

"I haven't the least notion who it belonged to. All I can tell you is that nobody's lived in it for as long as I've been taking this road. It's pretty remote, and there are a lot of empty houses. Most are in better shape than this one."

"Then I want to stop, if you and Pig are willing." The striker flared.

"I wouldn't use up more of that candle than you can help."

Pig's voice came from a greater distance. "Gang h'in, bucky. Yer comin'?"

"Yes, I am." He dismounted.

The wall was ruinous; the tangled iron through which Maytera Marble had picked her way had vanished. "I fought in a battle here, Oreb," he whispered to the bird on his shoulder.

"No fight!"

"Sometimes one must. Sometimes you do yourself."

Oreb fidgeted, his bill clacking unhappily. "Bad place."

"Oh, no doubt. They were holding Silk here, and Chenille, Patera Incus, and Master Xiphias. Not so long ago, I imagined Xiphias was walking along beside me. I wish he'd come back." He led his donkey through the gate and raised his lantern, hoping for a glimpse of the villa that had been Blood's; but the feeble light of the candle scarcely revealed the distant, pale bulk of Scylla's fountain. Under his breath he added, "Or that Silk would."

"Bad place!"

Behind them, Hound chuckled. "It's haunted, naturally. All these old places are supposed to be."