Gene Wolfe - Return to the Whorl

I feel like going below myself. I will not-not for a few more minutes at least-because I know that it is as cold there as it is here, and dark, with a hundred vicious drafts in place of this bracing wind. Like the Whorl and its brave, suffering peoples, I cling to my sun as long as I can.

It was the Neighbors who had impressed Wijzer most-Wijzer who is already trying to forget the Red Sun Whorl, and who will have succeeded in convincing himself that it was only a bad dream within a month.

How many of the bad dreams I remember were not really dreams at all? Does it make any difference? We live our lives in our thoughts, or we do not live. A man imagines his wife faithful, and is happy. What difference does it make whether she is or is not, as long as he believes it? Read carefully, my sons!

Doubtless the reality (known only to herself and the gods) is that she is faithful at times and unfaithful at others, like other women.

From this we see why the gods are needed. They see what is real-or if they do not, we imagine they do. Surely the Outsider must, if it is true that Pas and the rest worship him. How do the people with whom we walk in our dreams perceive our waking? The people who speak to us there, and to whom we speak? We die to them; do our corpses remain behind until the companions of our sleep bury them weeping?

Last night I dreamed of finding this pen case in Viron-no doubt the dream was what set me writing again today. Now in reality (as I understand it) I found it between the time I left my old manteion and the time Maytera's daughter called to me from a fifth-floor window. Was it more real when I found it than when I dreamed it? How could it be, when there was no difference between the two? Was it actually where my father's shop once stood that I found it? Or is that merely a part of the dream my waking mind has not yet rejected? It seems a little too pat to be true, yet memory assures me of it now.

How tall they were, the Neighbors! Robed in dignity!

Taal's voice was a brazen trumpet: "Upon the Vanished People, upon those once lords of this whorl, I call. The good character of my client Mysire Horn let them defend!" Everyone must have thought it a mere trick of rhetoric, and certainly there was no one in the courtroom more convinced of it than I. I had spoken with them and explained my predicament, and they had promised to help me if they could; but I had imagined signs and wonders of the sort I hoped for (and to some degree received) from Mora and Fava, not this uncanny spectacle of walking legends mounting the steps to the judge's right and sitting one by one in the little witness chair to deliver their solemn testimony.

"Mysire Windcloud, my life to our law I have devoted, but never one of you in court I have seen. Why have you come?"

"How could I not?"

Hamer snapped, "Questions you may not ask, mysire," which I think very brave of him.

"Why not?"

Taal explained, "Contrary to our law it is, mysire."

"Then I will ask no more until Dorp's law is altered, though Dorp will lose by it. We have come because honor compels us."

"Because accused your friend here stands?"

"Because the people of your town do."

"Who accuses us?"

Hamer rapped on his desk. "To the case before us yourself you must confine, Mysire Taal."

A large picture crashed to the floor, and about half the onlookers sprang to their feet.

Taal asked softly, "That you did, Mysire Windcloud?"

"No."

Judge Hamer leaned toward him, pointing with the mace of office. "Speak you must, mysire! It who did?"

"You." There was something in the single flat word that frightened even the judge, and which I myself found terrifying.

Taal addressed the court. "Mysire Rechtor, what we do here dangerous it is. Question Mysire Windcloud I must, but not you need. With all honor to the court, this I suggest."

I felt the building tremble as he spoke; and Hamer nodded, his face pale.

"My client, Mysire Horn. Him how long have you known?"

"Since I gave him my cup." Windcloud's face turned toward me, and though I could not see his eyes-I have never seen the eyes of any of them-I felt his glance.

"In days and years you cannot say, mysire?"

"No."

"An honest man he is?"

"Too much so."

"You he serves?"

"Yes, he does." That surprised me, I confess; I am still thinking about it.

"A traitor to our breed he is?"

"No." There was amusement in the word, I believe.

"To this case alone address myself I must, mysire. This you understand. That this whorl to us you have given, not relevant it is. About that, not I may ask. About your knowledge of men's characters I may inquire, if Mysire Rechtor permits. A man as here `a man' we say, not you are?"

"I am not, but a man of my own race."

"Many men, however, you have known, mysire? Men such as I am and as Mysire Rechtor is?"

"Yes. I was one of those who boarded your whorl when it neared our sun. In the Whorl, I made the acquaintance of many of your race, and I have known others since, on both the whorls we once called ours."

"Of these, my client Mysire Horn one is?"

"Yes. We became better acquainted when he was living in my house, some distance from here. I have found him to be an honorable man, devoted to your kind."

"If to our kind devoted he is, to yours a foe he must be, mysire. That do you deny?"

"I do. You spoke of your breed. You breed your own foes, who are our foes as well, those who would destroy others for gain and rob them for power." Here Windcloud paused-I shall never forget it, and I doubt that anyone who was present will-and turned his shadowed face, very slowly, toward Hamer.

"Your guest Mysire Horn was. This you have said. Invite him you did?"

"No. Another `man' who was living in my house brought him. He was not afraid of me, as the others were."

"This you did, though living in your house without your permission he was?"

"Soon it will be spring. The white fishcatchers will return, booming, and darkening your sky which was ours in their mating flight. Two will nest upon your chimney, though you will not invite them."

Windcloud's shadowed gaze had been upon Hamer, although he had addressed Taal; at this point he directed it to Nat. "You say he has harmed you, yet I see you whole, fat, and free, while another stands beside him with a sword."

To his everlasting credit, Nat rose and tried to withdraw his accusation; but Hamer would not permit it, asking whether the statements he had made were false and warning him that he would be prosecuted for lying under oath if he acknowledged that they were.

It was only then that I truly understood what had gone wrong in Dorp. It was not that its judges took bribes or that they used their power to enrich themselves, although they certainly did. It was that they had created a system that slowly but surely destroyed all who came in contact with it. Left to work it would destroy me, as Nat had desired; but it would destroy Nat as well, and Dorp itself.

Vadsig came to talk to me. "Here you sit, Mysire Horn, writing and writing. To us you do not speak."

"Poor man!" Oreb confirmed; and I protested that I talked to him, if only to tell him to be quiet, and that I had talked to Captain Wijzer.

"You we miss. Hide and Hoof it is. Me, also, mysire. Angry with us you are?"

"Not at all. But, Vadsig, I'd much rather have you young people desirous of my company than longing for my absence."

"Me to go you want?" She jumped up, shaking her full skirt and pretending to be deeply offended. "Tell me you must! Say back to the kitchen you go, dirty Vadsig!"

I protested that no man could possibly object to the company of such a woman as she.

She sat again. "When your town we reach, married Mysire Hide and I will be. His mother's blessing he wishes. To her a good son he is.,,