Gene Wolfe - In Green's Jungles

Let me leave my dream for a line or two. I have wondered a good deal about the actions of the Neighbor who released me, gave me my sword (and no doubt the light), and set my task. Why did he want the sewer beneath the City of the Inhumi opened? And why did he want me to do it, and not some other? Why did he not do it himself?

Most important, why would he not permit me to take Sinew with me?

This last is the easiest, I feel sure. I had reached my conclusion long before nightfall, and have never changed it. He wished me to return to the City of the Inhumi and free everyone who had been held with me. If Sinew had been freed too, the two of us would have been much less likely to return for the others, and would, moreover, have shared their gratitude if we did. Freeing them made me their leader.

I had no desire to be, and still less did I wish to risk my life a second time in the City of the Inhumi. I decided, very firmly, and as I thought irrevocably, that I would not return-that I would not allow myself to be so manipulated. Sinew had detested me for years; very well, let him free himself or die. As for the others who had been our companions on He-hold-fire's lander, I did not care a straw for any of them except Krait, who was safe. I resolved that when night came I would abandon the search and make my way down the river until fatigue overcame me, putting as much distance as possible between the City and myself.

The sky, which is nearly always dark on Green, grew darker; and the slumberous silence of river and jungle was violated again and again. I heard splashes and snorts as animals, newly awakened from their day-sleep, came to drink, and from across the river (which was by no means wide) the breaking of bones as some beast fed upon a stranded corpse. With my mind's eyes, I saw the blind man crouching on the bank, an arm between his jaws.

And I set off downriver, as I had resolved to do.

In my dream tonight, however, that moment never came. I had found gems, or at least smooth stones that seemed gems, in the sand in the hollow of an abrupt bend in the channel. After pocketing a few I ignored the rest, having hoped to find my light there. In my dream they were jewels indeed, jewels as big as pullet's eggs, sparkling from a hundred facets. At the opposite point, where the strengthened current washed away the earth of the bank, I had glimpsed squared stones and shards of pottery among the roots. In my dream, these became strange machines and gleaming weapons, objects of unthinkable power and mystery. The dead children taunted me, and begged, "A cardbit, sir? Just one cardbit, " urged on by Scylla.

Or at least, I believe now that those strange machines and weapons must exist only in my dream tonight, as Active as Scylla and the speaking dead. It may have been, however, that they were actually present, that I saw them and ignored them, refusing to recognize them for what they were; but that my memory has stored them up, and now recalls them to torment me for my neglect. What might we find if we were to dig for those treasures near buildings such as this rambling house of Inclito's?

Tonight, when we told stories around the dinner table, I discovered to my utter astonishment and her consternation that I could enter into Fava's, seeing everything she described and more, and changing the course of her tale. (I must remember to describe all that here.) If there is more to tales than I have ever believed, may there not be more to dreams, too? I will not say that there are treasures in the ruins here because I dreamed them. Madness lies in all such assumptions. But may not they be there, just as my sword was concealed in a wall? (Better yet, as the silver cup must have been hidden somewhere in the ruined Neighbor house near Gaon.) And may I not find some because of my dream?

For a moment at least I had the company I have been wishing for. The kitchen maid, fully dressed, with tousled hair and the indescribable expression of a woman who has been satisfied in love, appeared in my doorway to ask whether I would not like something to eat. Without answering her question, I demanded to know why she was awake at such an hour.

She said that it was necessary for her to rise very early to help the cook make bread, so that we could have freshly baked bread at breakfast, which my host's mother insists upon whenever there is company.

I remarked that she could not get much sleep in that case, asked where she had slept. It struck home. She colored, her cheeks (fuller even than Mora's) blushing so dark a red that I could not miss it even by candlelight, and said that she slept in the kitchen. "I'm going there now."

I refrained from asking from where.

"So I can get you something very easily, Master Incanto, if you want anything, sir."

I told her that I did not, and she fled. The other maid is slender and more attractive.

I have tried to sleep again, but it is perfectly useless. The nightmare river waits in my mind, ready to pounce the moment my eyes close, its dead people voicing their dead greetings and its dead children crying out to me for help. I do not mean that I dreamed it again. I cannot have, since I did not sleep. But it filled my thoughts most unpleasantly.

Not half a minute after I sat up again, in came the kitchen maid with this tray. This time I was able to speak with her somewhat longer, although she seemed more frightened than ever. Her name is Onorifica, she is the fourth child of seven, and her father owns a smaller, poorer farm nearby. He has bought three heifers (Onorifica says very good ones) from Inclito, and is paying for them with three years' labor from his daughter.

"It's not near as bad as you're thinking, sir. I get plenty to eat and my clothes, and presents sometimes." She showed me a silver ring and a bracelet she thinks is gold. It is actually brass if I am any judge, and was probably made in Gaon, where you can see a thousand like it on any market day.

"And I'll get in a nap after breakfast, sir. Cook and I both will."

I asked her about the others. Decina, the cook, is a permanent servant, paid in foodstuffs that she trades for whatever other things she may require. The coachman and the other farm laborers are paid in the same fashion, and all take a wagon into Blanko once a month to trade for whatever they want or need.

Torda, the other maid, is a distant relation of Inclito's. "A cousin?" I suggested.

"She'd like you to think it, sir. Madame's brother's son was married to her mother. I think that's the way of it. Only he got killed in a war, and she married somebody else, and that when she"-she meant Torda-"got born. It's some story like that, sir. Anyhow she came here in rags, that's what cook says, expecting to be treated like Mora, you know. Only they was always fighting. That was how it was when I came and I've got to go."

This tray she brought me holds a cup and saucer, a little pot of very good tea, sugar whiter than I was accustomed to in Gaon, half a lemon, and enough cherry tarts for four or five persons. I am drinking the tea, but I intend to leave the tarts for Oreb. That business about fresh bread for breakfast suggests a substantial meal.

Looking back over what I wrote an hour ago, I find my speculations on the motives of the Neighbor on Green who recruited me to clean his sewer. Let us try another, one I think deeper and more difficult.

Why (I asked) did he not do it himself? I am going to propose two theories; neither or both may be correct. The first is that the Neighbors find it hard to move some kinds of objects. So it seems to me after the dealings I have had with them. I do not think that they are here in the sense we are, even when they are standing beside us. This is only speculation, but I believe they may be able to move natural objects such as sticks and stones, and things that they themselves made when Blue and Green were their homes, better than other things. The silver cup they gave me (which I am very sorry I left: behind), the door the Neighbor opened for me when I was confined on Green, and the sword and light he gave me are all examples. We human beings are native to the Long Sun Whorl, and not to Blue or Green; and so the tangled corpses of so many hundreds of us would have presented a Neighbor with great difficulties, if I am correct.