Gene Wolfe - Return to the Whorl

"A child, therefore, clings? A child adheres to landmarks, places familial and familiar."

Hello, Molpe. My name is Horn, Marvelous Molpe, and to tell you the truth I ever paid much attention to you. I'm sorry for that now, Molpe, but I suppose it is too late. You were Musk's goddess. Musk liked birds, loved hawks and eagles and all such, and I didn't like Musk, or at least didn't like what others told me about him.

"Hug the shore, eh? These, um, departed? These children who have, um, attained to life's culmination early. The-ah-familiar house, um, rooms. Toy, eh? Even toys. We, er, prattle that they have lost their lives, hey? Said it myself. We all have, eh? Possibly they hope to find them again, like a lost doll. Sad, though. Tragic. Not like, um, exorcising devil, eh? Calde Silk, eh? Performed the-ah-exorcised. Wrote an, um, report. Some old place on Music Street. I-ah-saw it. His, um, report, that is."

You were the goddess of music too, Molpe. I ought to have remembered that. I could use a cheering song. And I have sung, Molpe. I really have, although I was not thinking specifically of you. Oh, Molpe! Please, Molpe, dear old Molpe, goddess of kites and childhood, doesn't that count for something?

The point of light had become a rectangle. Still very far, and still very small; but distinctly a rectangle. Which god had light? Molpe? Molpe had autumn leaves, vagrant scraps of paper, wild birds, clouds, and all the other light things. So why not light itself?

"Pas, eh? Solar god, er, sun god. Go toward the light, child, hey? Steer by the sun."

What about the stars, Patera? Was Pas the god of stars, too? No, he could not be, because the stars burned outside Pas's whorl.

Not just in manteion, Molpe-but I sang there every Scylsday as a boy.

The old hymn faded and was gone with his cracked and lonely voice. Tartaros was the god of night and dark places, Tartaros who had been Auk's friend, walking with Auk, his hand in Auk's. There was no god's hand in his own, nothing but the stick that he had picked up a moment before. Was there a stick god? A god of wood and tree? A god or goddess for carpenters and cabinetmakers? If there was any, he could not think of it.

Smoke . He stopped to sniff. Yes, wood smoke. Very faint, but wood smoke.

How hot it was!

He had tried to smoke and salt fish when they had first come to Lizard, and watched his fish spoil afterward, had gone at last, after humiliating himself more than once, to the fishermen and learned their secrets. The smell of wood smoke always reminded him of his failures, of eating the fish that even loyal Nettle would not eat and being violently ill for half a day afterward. It was the dryness, not the smoke (as he had thought), that preserved the fish from decay.

"Tartaros! Can you hear me, Tenebrious Tartaros? Are you listening?" When he had written about Auk, he had shown Tartaros replying instantly to such pleas as those; but here was no book, no story, and there was no answer at all.

This grass-like stuff was wheat, presumably. Some sort of grain. They grew wheat, in that case, in the dark beyond the Aureate Path, the darkness of which the shade was a mere material shadow cooling the whorl, cooling even the breath of Molpe.

Hare had joined General Mint after Blood died, and had told them about the eagle and the old kite maker's praying to Molpe for a wind. The wind had come, he said. The wind, and winter, too. Winter at last, with snow to refresh fields as hot and dry as dead fish hanging over a fire.

How hard the wind had blown, and how bitterly, bitingly cold it had been when they had gone down into the tunnels!

Not like Green. No, not like Green at all.

The bomb had burst, and Hyacinth had feared that their horse had been killed. Hyacinth, freezing cold and a little dirty, so beautiful in the dim light and wind-driven snow that it had been hard to look at her. Nettle had been cheerful and brave; but Hyacinth had been lovely, always lovely and always finding new ways to be lovely even when she was exhausted or shrieking curses. Hyacinth had hated all men, had hated men in the aggregate, because of things that had been said to her and things she had been forced to do for money, humiliations worse than spoiled fish.

He had loved Nettle-Nettle, whose mother had hated her from the moment of conception, as the name she had given her had made only too plain-and had envied Patera Silk Hyacinth (lovely, savage Hyacinth) with all his heart.

He stumbled and fell, got up again, too weary to swear, and looked for the golden rectangle; but it had vanished. He was tired, he discovered. Weak and tired and light-headed, and what was the use? Sighing, he dropped to his knees, then stretched out upon the soft, half-grown grain.

If Hyacinth had indeed been his, he would never have gone to Blue, never have gone to Green, never have died on Green…

For the first time he admitted himself that he was truly dead, that he had died in the medical compartment of the pillaged lander he had struggled so desperately to repair. This was the whorl again, the Whorl in which he had been born, and this was the only afterlife he had been granted.

If he had somehow possessed Hyacinth, he would still be in the Long Sun Whorl. He had not possessed her, yet here he was, without the Long Sun.

His eyes shut of themselves, seeing no less shut than open; and the soft cold swirling snow of another day filled his mind, mocking the dry heat of black night.

Wings beat overhead, and a harsh voice called, " Silk? Silk? Silk?" But he did not reply.

The third member of our party is my daughter Jahlee. She is of medium height, red-haired and attractive, with a smooth almondshaped face and a sly smile many find captivating. The white mule is hers; she wears a thick wool gown under a wide, warm, snow-cat coat that reaches to the ankles of her kid-skin boots. The cold makes her slow and sleepy just the same, and she fears-as I do myself-that she may freeze to death like my poor friend Fava.

Jahlee is talented, although it might be unwise for me to say exactly how. She slipped her hands from the bonds as soon as the bandits left us. She can free herself easily from all such restraints, and her big white mule tolerates her, although it is naturally somewhat fearful. Our horses panic if Jahlee rides too near-but perhaps I have said too much already.

About myself, there is less to tell. I am Horn, Hide's father and Jahlee's. I am taller than most, and thin, with a homely, bony sort of face and white hair as long and thick as a woman's. I wear sheepskin boots like Hide's, and a long sheepskin coat over the old dark robe in which I left Gaon.

Now you know all four of us, and I must get some rest.

We hoped to reach the coast today, but there is no sign of it. I asked Hide whether we would not be several days' ride north of New Viron when we reach the sea. He said a week's ride at least. No doubt he is correct, but I would have appreciated more optimism. Since it seems likely that we are north of New Viron, we will pass Lizard before we come to the town. We will pass it, but we cannot reach it without a boat. Much as I would like to see Nettle (and Hoof?), my mill, and the house, I have resigned myself to going to New Viron first, selling our horses and some of the loot, and buying a boat.

Hide and Jahlee are asleep. It worries me, because she sleeps so little, normally; but she is near the fire and as warm as I can make her, with two blankets under and three over her, and her big coat as well. Her face-

I have sent Oreb to look for the sea. He is not as skillful as I would like at estimating distance or gauging the difficulty of rivers, sloughs, and the like; still, he will be able to tell me something of value. Or so I hope. Jahlee might scout for us in warmer weather, and that would be better.