Paul McAuley: Child of the River

“Let me kill him now,” Urthank said.

“He’s already a dead man,” the Constable said.

“Not while he talks treason,” Urthank said stubbornly. He was staring straight at his father.

“Fools,” the trader said. “You have all seen the argosies and carracks sailing downriver to war with their cannons and siege, engines. But there are more terrible weapons let loose in the world.”

“Let me kill him,” Urthank said.

The baby had caught at the Constable’s thumb, although he could not close his fingers around it. He grimaced, as if trying to smile, but blew a saliva bubble instead.

The Constable gently disengaged the baby’s grip and set him on the button cushion at the stern. He moved carefully, as if through air packed with invisible boxes, aware of Urthank’s burning gaze at his back. He turned and said, “Let the man speak. He might know something.”

The trader said, “The bureaucrats are trying to wake the Hierarchs from their reveries. Some say by science, some by witchery. The bureaucrats are so frightened of heresy consuming our world that they try anything to prevent it.”

Unthank spat. “The Hierarchs are all ten thousand years dead. Everyone knows that. They were killed when the Insurrectionists threw down the temples and destroyed most of the avatars.”

“The Hierarchs tried to follow the Preservers,” the trader said. “They rose higher than any other bloodline, but not so high that they cannot be called back.”

The Constable kicked the man and said roughly, “Enough theology. Is this one of their servants?”

“Ys is large, and contains a multitude of wonders, but I’ve never seen anything like this. Most likely it is a foul creature manufactured by the forbidden arts. Those trying to forge such weapons have become more corrupt than the heretics. Destroy it! Return the baby and sink the boat!”

“Why should I believe you?”

“I’m a bad man. I admit it. I’d sell any one of my daughters if I could be sure of a good profit. But I studied for a clerkship when I was a boy, and I was taught well. I remember my lessons, and I know that the existence of this thing is against the word of the Preservers.”

Urthank said slowly, “We should put the baby back. It isn’t our business.”

“All on the river within a day’s voyage is my business,” the Constable said.

“You don’t know everything,” Urthank said. “You just think you do.”

The Constable knew then that this was the moment poor Urthank had chosen. So did Unthank, who subtly shifted on the thwart so that he was no longer shoulder to shoulder with his brother. The Constable met Urthank’s stare and said, “Keep your place, boy.”

There was a moment when it seemed that Urthank would not attack. Then he inflated his chest and let out the air with a roar and, roaring, threw himself at his father.

The whip caught around Urthank’s neck with a sharp crack that echoed out across the black water. Urthank fell to his knees and grabbed hold of the whip as its loop tightened under the slack flesh of his chin. The Constable gripped the whip’s stock with both hands and jerked it sideways as if he held a line which a huge fish had suddenly struck. The skiff tipped wildly and Urthank tumbled headfirst into the glowing water. But the boy did not let go of the whip. He was stupid, but he was also stubborn. The Constable staggered, dropped the whip—it hissed over the side like a snake—and fell overboard too.

The Constable kicked off his loose, knee-high boots as he plunged down through the cold water, kicked out again for the surface. Something grabbed the hem of his kilt, and then Urthank was trying to swarm up his body. Light exploded in the Constable’s eye as his son’s hard elbow hit his face.

They thrashed through glowing water and burst into the air, separated by no more than an arm’s length.

The Constable spat a mouthful of water and gasped, “You’re too quick to anger, my son. That was always your weakness.”

He saw the shadow of Urthank’s arm sweep through the milky glow, and countered the thrust with his own knife. The blades clashed and slid along each other, locking at their hilts.

Urthank growled and pressed down. He was very strong. The Constable felt a terrific pain as his knife was twisted from his grasp and Urthank’s blade buried its point in his forearm.

He kicked backward in the water as Urthank slashed at his face; spray flew in a wide fan.

“Old,” Urthank said. “Old and slow.”

The Constable steadied himself with little circling kicks. He could feel his hot blood pulsing into the water; Urthank had caught a vein. There was a heaviness in his bones; the wound on his shoulder throbbed. He knew that Urthank was right, but he also knew that he was not prepared to die.

He said, “Come to me, son, and find out who is strongest.”

Urthank grinned, freeing his tusks from his lips. He kicked forward, driving through the water with his knife held out straight, trying for a killing blow. But the water slowed him as the Constable had known it would, and the Constable kicked sideways, always just out of reach, while Urthank stabbed wildly, sobbing curses and uselessly spending his strength. Father and son circled each other. In the periphery of his vision, the Constable was aware that the white boat had separated from the skiff, but he could spare no thought for it as he avoided Urthank’s next onslaught.

At last Urthank stopped, paddling to keep in one place and gasping heavily.

“Strength isn’t everything,” the Constable observed. “Come to me, son. I’ll grant you a quick release and no shame.”

“Surrender, old man, and I’ll give you an honorable burial on land. Or I’ll kill you here and let the little fishes strip your bones.”

“O Urthank, how disappointed I am! You’re no son of mine after all!”

Urthank lunged with a sudden, desperate fury, and the Constable punched precisely, hitting the boy’s elbow where the nerve traveled over the bone. Urthank’s fingers opened in reflex and his knife fluttered away through the water. He dove for it without thinking, and the Constable bore down on him with all his weight, enduring increasingly feeble blows to his chest and belly and legs. It took a long time, but at last he let go and Urthank’s body floated free, facedown in the glowing water.

“You were the strongest of my sons,” the Constable said when he had his breath back. “You were faithful after your fashion, but you never had a good thought in your head. If you had killed me and taken my wives, someone else would have killed you in a year.”

Unthank paddled the skiff over and helped his father clamber into the well. The white boat was a dozen oar-lengths off, glimmering against the dark. The skinny trader whose tongue the Constable had cut out lay facedown in the bilge water, drowned in his own blood. His partner was gone.

Unthank shrugged, and said that the man had slipped over the side.

“You should have brought him back. He was bound hand and foot. A big boy like you should have had no trouble.”

Unthank returned the Constable’s gaze and said simply, “I was watching your victory, father.”

“No, you’re not ready yet, are you? You’re waiting for the right moment. You’re a subtle one, Unthank. Not like your brother.”

“He won’t have got far. The prisoner, I mean.”

“Did you kill him?”

“Probably drowned by now. Like you said, he was bound hand and foot.”

“Help me with your brother.”

Together, father and son hauled Urthank’s body into the skiff. The milky glow was fading out of the water. After the Constable had settled Urthank’s body, he turned and saw that the white boat had vanished. The skiff was alone on the wide dark river, beneath the black sky and the smudged red whorl of the Eye of the Preservers. Under the arm of the tiller, on the leather pad of the button cushion, the baby grabbed at black air with pale starfish hands, chuckling at unguessable thoughts.