Gene Wolfe - Return to the Whorl

Rereading, I see that I promised to describe my search for Jahlee. This would be a good time to do it; but first I should say that I was puzzled for some time after I arrived. I could not imagine how I had gotten to Green from Judge Hamer's sellaria when trips of the kind had previously required the presence of an inhuma. My initial feeling was that what I had experienced was impossible, and thus that I was not really on Green at all but was experiencing a dream or hallucination. This lasted for what seemed an hour or two, although it cannot really have been long.

Subsequently, I realized that there were at least three explanations. The first and certainly the most attractive is that Fava was possessing Vadsig. The difficulty is that the "Fava" possessing Vadsig may be nothing more than Mora's dream of Fava; if that is so, the web of difficulties becomes worse than ever.

The second (which I am loath to adopt though I think it the most plausible of the three) is that an inhumu was present but unknown to me. I write "an inhumu," despite the fact that my previous partners in bilocation have been female; it is possible that a male might serve as well. If this explanation is the true one, it would be interesting-and useful, perhaps-to know who it was. Hide, Vadsig, Aanvagen, Beroep, and Azijin can be dismissed; I have been too close to all of them far too often to be thus deceived. In my judgment Cijfer can be dismissed as well. That leaves Judge Hamer himself (surely the most interesting possibility), various troopers, and others, any of whom could be an inhuma or an inhumu.

The third is that I was assisted by the Neighbors, from whom the inhumi must originally have gained this power. I have been seeing and speaking to them, although this is not the proper time to write about it. It seems possible that Seawrack's ring not only identifies me as a friend, but actually attracts them-although we are all attracted to friends, with a ring or without one. (I may be making too much of this.)

Whether or not the ring has such a power, the Neighbors may have found me before they made themselves known to me, which was not until after Hide and I questioned Vadsig-indeed, after Hoof and I met Wapen in the dram shop. They were willing to help us, and indeed their testimony was of great value to us during my trial, as I shall describe in a moment or two.

I am loath to mention it, but there remains a fourth-

Oreb has returned. I heard him tapping at the window just now. In he flew and gave me his usual jaunty greeting, although he was cold and hungry. Blackbirds fatten best in cold weather, according to the saying, but it doesn't seem to apply to Oreb; in any event, I doubt that he is strong enough to get much food from a frozen corpse.

I had sent him with a message for Nettle, something I ought to have done long before. She must be worried about Hoof and Hide, as well as me, and very worried indeed about Sinew. In a small hand, on half a sheet of this paper, I explained that he is living happily on Green where we have two grandsons, and is calde of a thriving village. I also assured her that the twins are safe with me, and told her that we have an adopted daughter and that Krait, whom I also adopted, is dead. (This last was unwise perhaps; besides, if Jahlee was Krait's mother, he was properly a grandson-but one may adopt a grandson, surely.)

I see I have confused the rings. The one I am wearing is not the one Seawrack gave me, although it resembles it closely. This is Oreb's ring. It seems the stone changes color when it is worn; it was originally much darker, surely. I should go back and line out my mistake, I suppose, but I hate lining things out-it gives the page such an ugly appearance. Besides, to line out is to accept responsibility for the correctness of all that is let stand. To correct that or any other error would be to invite you to ask me (when you read this, as I hope you soon will) why I failed to correct some other. And I cannot correct all or even most of them without tearing the whole account to shreds and starting again. My new account, moreover, would be bound to be worse than this, since I could not prevent myself from attributing to myself knowledge and opinions I did not have at the time the events I recorded occurred. No, there really are such things as honest mistakes; this account is full of them, and I intend to leave it that way.

Having been clubbed during a session of Judge Hamer's court, I found myself again in the abandoned tower in the cliff face in which I had left Jahlee. I was overjoyed at first, thinking it would be easy to find her and return her to her sleeping body.

I searched the tower, discovering many strange devices and a locked door that appeared to lead into the cliff itself, no doubt opening upon some cleft in the rock. Jahlee was nowhere to be found, however, and at last I was forced to admit that during the time she had been alone she had left the tower, abandoning hope of rescue and flying out the circular port-I described it a good deal earlier-and down to the fog-shrouded swamps in which she was born.

I have been talking with Oreb, who has recovered himself somewhat after his exhausting trip. (Yesterday he seemed very tired and weak, and tucked his head under his wing as soon as he had been fed.) I questioned him closely about my letter.

"Bird take."

"I'm well aware that you took it, Oreb. But did you take it to Nettle? Did you deliver it as I asked?"

"Yes, yes! Take girl. Girl cry."

"I see." I rose and paced the room for some while, pausing at one window or another-there are seven in all-to peer between the leading and the bull's-eye at the center of each diamond-shaped pane of bluish glass. This house is admirably situated atop a small hill and commands a fine view of Dorp; but I could not have told you what I had seen five seconds after I saw it. If the Sun Street Quarter as it was before the fire had been re-created there, I doubt that I would have noticed.

Oreb was hopping back and forth, snapping his bill and whistling softly in the way that betokens nervousness; and at last I turned back to him. "What did she tell you to tell me, Oreb? There must have been something."

"No tell."

"Nothing? Surely she said something-she must have. Are you saying she sent you back without even a word?"

"No tell," he insisted.

"This is Nettle we're talking about? The woman in the log house at the southern end of Lizard? Near the tail?"

"Yes, yes." He bobbed affirmation. I described her, and he repeated, "Yes, yes."

"Was it day or night when you found her, Oreb? Do you remember?"

"Sun shine."

"Day then. What was she doing? I mean, before you gave her my letter."

"Look sea."

" `Look see'? At what was she looking?"

"Look wet. Big wet. Look sea."

"Ah, I see-I mean I understand. Was she looking out the window, or was she standing on the beach?" Foolish as it may seem, these details were important to me. I wanted very much to picture her as she had been when Oreb arrived.

"No stand. Girl sit."

"She was sitting on the beach? Is that what you're saying? On the shingle?" When we were much younger, we used to spread a blanket there and sit on it to look at the stars; but we had not done that for a long time.

"Chair sit!" He was growing impatient.

"So she'd carried a chair out of the house, and was sitting in it and staring out to sea. I suppose it's natural enough-both Sinew and I left by boat. Naturally she would expect us to return the same way. Was anyone with her, Oreb?"

"No, no."

"She was alone? There was nobody with her?"

He picked up my word, as he often does. "Nobody."

"I don't suppose you landed on her shoulder, so how did you deliver it? Did you talk to her first-tell her who you were, and who I am?"