Kage Baker - The Anvil of the World

Smith spun the wheel, edging the Kingfisher’s Nest around a dead snag. “Funny how everyone thinks we’re the worst people in the world, until they need something done. Then we’re the wonderful clever people with ideas.”

Willowspear sighed.

“You mustn’t take it personally.”

“All I know is, if you put a naked Yendri and a naked Child of the Sun down in a wilderness, with nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep, the Yendri would sit there and do nothing for fear of stepping on a blade of grass. The Child of the Sun would figure out how to make himself clothes and tools and shelter and—in ten generations the Child of the Sun would have cities and trade goods and—and culture, dammit, while the Yendri would still be sitting there scared to move,” said Smith.

“If I were going to argue with you, I would point out that in ten more generations the Child of the Sun would have wars, famine, and plague, and the Yendri would still be there. And in ten more generations the Child of the Sun would be dead, leaving a wrecked place where no blade of grass grew; and the Yendri would still be there,” said Willowspear. “So who is wiser, Smith?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Lord Ermenwyr, climbing up on deck. Stabb followed him. “But the only way anyone would ever win this stupid experiment would be to make the naked Yendri and the naked Child of the Sun of opposite sexes. Then they’d think of something much more interesting to do. What’s that noise up ahead, Smith?”

“You’ll see in a minute,” said Smith. They came around a long bar of mud alive with basking water snakes, yellow as coiled brass, and beheld the Pool of Reth.

It opened four acres of forest to the sun, and the water was clear as green glass endlessly rippling, save at the edge where the Rethestlin thundered down in its white torrent from the cliff, along a wide shelf the height of a house. Green ferns taller than a man leaned from the bank, feeding on the air that was wet with rainbows. Tiny things, birds maybe, flitted across in the sunlight, and now and then one of them would make an apparently suicidal plunge into the cascade.

Willowspear pointed silently. On the bank to one side was an open meadow, and two tall stones stood there, carved with signs as the three at Hlinjerith had been carved. The same flowers had been planted about their bases, but in this more sheltered place had grown to great size. Rose brambles were thick as Willowspear’s arm, poppy blooms the size of dishes, and the standing stones seemed smaller by comparison. A trail led from them to the base of the cliff, where it switchbacked up broadly, an easy climb.

“Here the Star-Cloaked faltered,” said Willowspear. He drew a deep breath and sang: “ ‘Leading the unchained-lost-amazed, holding the Child, the blood of his body in every step he took; this was the first place his strength failed him, and he fell from the top of the cliff. The Child fell with him. The people came swift down running lamenting, and found Her floating, for the river would not drown the Blessed-Miraculous-Beloved; and in Her fist She held the edge of his starry cloak, as in Her hand She now holds the heavens and all that is in them.

“ ‘And so he was brought into the air, the Imperfect Beloved, and the people wept for him; but the Child pulled his hair, and he opened his eyes and lived. And he was stunned-silent-forgetful a long while, but when he spoke again it was to praise Her. And the people praised Her. In this place, they first knew She was the Mother of Strength and Mercy, and they knelt and praised Her.’ ”

Lord Ermenwyr grimaced, and in a perfectly ordinary voice said, “So, Smith, how do we get up the falls?”

“Oh, that’ll be easy,” said Smith, guiding the Kingfisher’s Nest into the Pool. “You just arrange to have a team of engineers brought in, with a small army and heavy equipment. We could work out a system of locks and dams that’d get us up to the top in ten minutes. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of years to build.”

“Ha-ha,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “No, Smith, really.”

“Drop the anchor!” ordered Smith, and opened the stopcock as the demons obeyed him. Steam shot forth white, adding more rainbows to the air as it gradually subsided. The ever-clanking sound of the oars stopped. “Really,” he said.

“Look, I happen to know the Yendri get up this river all the time,” said Lord Ermenwyr heatedly.

“Not in one of these galleys, they don’t,” said Smith.

“Well, can’t you do something with one of those, what are those things called, levers? One of my tutors, another one of your people by the way, told me you could move anything with a lever.”

“Why, yes. All we need is a lever, say, ten times the length of the keel, and a place to balance it, and a place to stand … oh, and tools and materials we don’t happen to have,” said Smith.

“You’re being unnecessarily negative about this, aren’t you?”

“Why don’t you use sorcery, then, your lordship?”

Willowspear cleared his throat.

“The Yendri,” he said, “travel in small light craft. When they arrive here, they get out and carry the boats up that path, and so along the bank above until they can set sail and push against the current again.”

“Portage,” said Smith. “The only trouble being, this vessel weighs a lot more than a canoe.”

“Coracle.”

“Whatever.”

Lord Ermenwyr looked hopefully at his bodyguards. “What do you think, boys? Could you carry my boat up there?”

The three demons blinked at him.

“Yes, Master,” said Curt, and they all three dove overboard and a moment later the Kingfisher’s Nest rocked in the water as her anchor was dragged along the bottom.

“No! Wait!” shouted Smith, tottering backward, for the bow was rising out of the water. “This won’t work!”

“You don’t know demons!” cried Lord Ermenwyr gleefully, wrapping his arms around the mast.

The stern was free of the water, and to Smith’s astonishment the whole vessel lurched purposefully up the shore—

And abruptly there was a most odd and unpleasant noise, and her bow went down.

Willowspear, who had been clinging to the rail, peered over to see what had happened. He said something horrified in Yendri.

“Master,” said a mournful voice from beneath them, “I am afraid that now Crish will need a new body too.”

Lord Ermenwyr blew his nose.

“No,” he said wretchedly, “it has to be me. But I’m damned if I’m going to do it with these clothes on.”

He yanked at one of his boots manfully and ineffectively, until Willowspear arose and went to him and took the lordling’s foot in his hands.

“Pull backward,” he advised.

“Thank you.”

They sat in the lee of the Kingfisher’s Nest, looking vast as a beached whale where it had settled on the shore. Smith had built a small fire and was adding sticks to it now and then, but it wasn’t able to do much against the damp and the growing darkness. Lord Ermenwyr disrobed quickly once his other boot was off. He stood shivering and pale in the purple twilight.

“Right,” he said, and picked his way along the edge of the Pool until he found a broken branch of a good size. Stripping the leaves and twigs away gave him something that would pass for a staff. Muttering to himself, he walked a certain number of paces, turned, and began to sketch the outline of a body in the mud.

He worked quickly, and did not take great pains with detail. The result was a squared-off blocky thing that did not look particularly human, with a scored gash for a mouth and two hastily jabbed pits for its eyes. But it did look remarkably like Cutt and Stabb, who sat like boulders in the firelight, watching him.