Gene Wolfe - In Green's Jungles

"I'd feel sorry for her, " Mora said.

"Perhaps you would. War came, and Scleroderma acquired a needier. I don't know how, and it doesn't matter. She did. And when we who had lived in the Sun Street Quarter had to fight, Scleroderma fought like a trooper. It isn't good for a trooper to be over forty, or short, or fat. It isn't good at all, and she was all of those things; but she fought like a trooper just the same."

As I said that, something came into Mora's eyes that told me I was in fact running the risk I feared.

"There were many women with us who had known her all their lives, and some of them were shamed into fighting too, though none of the rest showed her determined courage. I was almost precisely as old as you are when all this happened, and there was a girl named Nettle there with me who was my own age. Nettle had fought earlier-we both had-and she said then what both of us felt, which was that General Mint might easily have put Scleroderma in command of fifty or a hundred troopers."

"Women don't fight here, " Mora told me, "or not very much."

I smiled. "They fight only with their husbands, you mean. I know they must, because women everywhere do that. Scleroderma did more than fight, though I have mentioned the fighting first because it was what she did first. The troopers we were fighting were brave and well trained. They had slug guns, and some had armor. It wasn't long before some of us were dead and many of us were wounded. It was Scleroderma who went for our wounded under fire and bandaged their wounds, and carried or dragged them to a safe place. I know that very well, Mora, because I was one of the wounded she rescued."

"I'd like to meet her."

"We will both meet her in time, I hope. She is dead now. But long after that fighting was over, when we were here on Blue and I helped her and her husband build their new house, she told me her secret. It's a simple one, but if you'll make it your own it may serve you well. She said she thought about what there was to do. What would be hardest, what next hardest, what followed that, and so on. Then she decided which level was within her reach, how difficult a task she could manage. Mora, do you understand what I'm saying? She ranked the tasks mentally."

"I think so."

"She might decide that dragging the logs to the spot where her new house was to stand was the hardest, for example. That felling the trees was next hardest, and so on. And that both those would be too strenuous for her. Shaping the logs and boring the holes for the pegs were both too difficult, too; but she could cut small limbs for pegs and smooth them with a knife. That wouldn't be too hard for her."

Mora nodded. "Sometimes I do that, too."

"Then she went to the level above that one, and bored the holes."

The next nod came slowly, but it came.

"Blanko will be at war very soon, Mora. Your father thinks so, and he's got a level head and a good grasp of the situation here. I'm not going to tell you that you'll be loved as you wish if you do as Scleroderma did, or even as Nettie did. You may not be-and I honestly believe you'll be loved like that no matter what you do. But if you do what Scleroderma did, you'll deserve to be, which is something quite different. It is far easier to get all the good things that our lives have to offer than it is to deserve them. We seldom have much joy of them, however, unless we deserve them."

"I don't know if I could, " Mora muttered. Then, "I'll try."

"You'll be risking your life. I'm sure you understand that. What is far worse from my viewpoint, I am risking it just by talking to you as I am now. You may be killed. But Mora… "

"Yes?"

"You may be killed no matter what you do. Not everyone who runs risks dies, and many who try very hard to avoid every risk are killed anyway. You're the daughter of one of Blanko's leaders-"

"He's the Duko. They don't call him that, but he is."

"Things won't be easy for you if Blanko loses. Now go to your palaestra. You're very late already, I'm sure. My blessing goes with you, for whatever it's worth."

Oreb seconded me. "Go now. 'Bye, girl."

"About Fava… Does she really, really have to leave?"

I nodded. "For your grandmother's sake, for her own sake, and for yours."

Reluctantly, Mora rose. "She's the only friend I've got."

"Yes, I know. And as long as she is with you, she's the only friend you can have. Possibly you haven't thought of it like that; but Fava has, you may be sure. Another friend might guess the truth, as you did. Fava will see to it that no one gets that close to the two of you. Isn't she doing it already? You must know, and the story you told last night indicated that she is."

As I watched Mora go, it came to me that I was watching a woman who did not know that she was a woman or had not yet come to terms with the knowledge, a woman whose womanhood was reckoned not in years but in weeks or months – perhaps only in days.

When we were on Green and I was searching the river for the sword and the light I had been given, I walked up and down the banks of the river for most of a day. I found and saw a great many things without being much affected by any of them. I was looking for my light; I was looking for my sword; and since those other things were neither of them, I paid them little heed. They took their revenge on me just now, waking me wet with sweat. I have dried myself with the towel Inclito's mother gave me, lit the candle, and opened my door. I would like to have company, but Oreb is off exploring and everyone else seems to be asleep. If any of them are awake, perhaps they will drop in for a talk. There is no one in this house, not even the cook, whom I would not like to talk to. The gloomy chambermaid would be best, I believe. Her name is Torda, but Torda is probably too much to hope for.

In the meantime, I am going to write about what I saw and what I dreamed, which comes down to saying the same thing twice. By writing about them, I will subject them to the discipline of my conscious mind. At least I hope so.

The corpses were the first and the most obvious thing. They floated past upon the slow water the whole time I searched, mostly singly, but sometimes by two and threes. I have already written about the first, the one I saw in the water while the Neighbor was still with me. There would be no point in recording the same facts about the rest. I had cleared the blockage enough to raise the level of the river noticeably, and the opening I had made was permitting the water in the sewer to erode dead men (and women and children) as any little flow of water washes away grains of sand. A few of them floated face up. Most were face down, and I was glad of that.

Nothing has happened, except that I have sat here thinking, trying to recall something that I heard Patera Pike read from the Chrasmologic Writings long, long ago. Something about the people Pas put into our Long Sun Whorl multiplying until they were as numerous as grains of sand. Patera Remora has a copy of the Writings, I know. He probably has the quotation by heart, too; it would not even be necessary to ask him to look it up. But what a sad thing it is to try to live by a book written for another time and another whorl! The gods to whom he prays and sacrifices are far away.

Yet he is one of the few good men in New Viron. One of the few good men left, I ought to say. Who is worse off, we who have lost faith in his book, or he who keeps it, faithful without praise and without reward? We are, beyond all question. Better to be good without reason than to be evil for a hundred good reasons.

Can Great Pas really have meant for all this to happen when he inspired one of the Chrasmologic Writers to pen those few words about grains of sand? Can he have foreseen the blocked sewer on Green, and the corpses bursting free in the wave that nearly drowned me? In my dream, the floating corpses motioned to me and spoke, saying the things they had said in life, urging me to buy nails or boots, cheap clothing, and meat pies, blessing me in the names of various gods, and wishing me a good morning, a good afternoon; and it became clear to me that the dead cannot know that they are dead, that if they know it they cannot be dead. Thus all those dead men and women behaved in death as they had in life. It seemed certain that I was dead as well-that it was only because I too was dead and did not know it that I could hear the dead as I did, that I could see them move and speak.