On Blue's waters

I smiled; no one had called me young in a long time. “I’ll try, and if you know the legend, I’d like to hear it.”

He cleared his throat and poured himself another glass of wine. “The Maker everything he made. Like a man a boat builds it was. All the animals, the grass, trees, Pas and his old wife, everything. About the Maker you know?”

I nodded and said that we called him the Outsider.

“A good name for him that is. Outside him we keep, into our hearts we don’t let him come.

“When everything he’s got made, he got to paint. First the water. Easy it is. Then the ground, all the rocks. A little harder it gets. Then sky and trees. Grass harder than you think it is, the little brush he had got to use, and paint so when the wind blows the color changes, and different colors for different kinds. Then dogs and greenbucks, all the different animals. Birds and flowers going to be tough they are. This he knows. So for the last them he leaves.”

I nodded. Marrow was yawning.

“While the other stuff painting he is, the pajarocu with the big owl up north they got makes friends. Well, that big owl the first bird the Maker paints he is, because so quick it he can do. White for feathers, eyes, legs, and everything. But that owl not much fun he is, so the snake-eater bird next he calls. At the owl the pajarocu bird looks, and all over white he is. Does it hurt the pajarocu wants to know. That big owl, he never laughs. To have a game he wants, so he says yes. A lot it hurts, he says, but over quick it is.

So the pajarocu, over to look he goes. The Maker the snake-killer bird painting is, and two dozen colors using he is. Red for the tail, brown for wings, blue and white in front, yellow around the mouth and the chin, everything he’s got using he is. So the pajarocu hides. When the Maker finished is, the pajarocu nobody can find. Because he has never been painted and nobody him can see, it is.”

Marrow chuckled.

“So the Maker for the owl and the snake-eater bird calls, and them for the pajarocu to look he tells. The owl at night can look, and the snake-eater bird when light it gets. But him they never see, so him they never find. All the time the owl around the night he flies, and cu, cu he says. Never the snake-eater bird talks, till somewhere where the pajarocu might be he comes. Then Pajarocu?”

I said, “That’s a good story, but if I understand you, you’re telling me that even with your directions I may have a lot of trouble finding Pajarocu.”

Wijzer nodded solemnly. “Not a place that wants to be found it is. Traders to steal will come back, they think. If close you get, wrong their friends to you will tell.”

Marrow, who had eaten nearly as much as Wijzer, said, “They have invited us to send someone, one man or one woman to fly back to the Long Sun Whorl and return to this one. You’ve seen their letter, and that’s an accurate copy. How do you explain it?”

“They it maybe can explain. Them ask. Everything this young fellow to tell I want, so that careful he will be. Afraid you are that so much I will tell that not he will go?”

Marrow said, “No,” and I reaffirmed that I was going.

“You a question I ask.” Wijzer swirled what little wine remained in his glass, staring into it as though he could read the future in its spiral. “One man back can go, your letter says. This fellow Silk to bring here you want. Two you will be.”

I nodded. “Marrow and our other leaders and I talked about that. A great many people know about Patera Silk now. When he identifies himself, we believe they’ll let him come aboard their lander.”

When Wijzer only stared at me, I added, “We hope that they will, at least.”

“You hope.” Wijzer snorted.

Marrow said, “We do. Our own lander held more than five hundred. I doubt that they’ll get two hundred from other towns with their invitation, but suppose they do. Or let’s say they get a hundred, and to that they add four hundred of their own people. The lander reaches the Long Sun Whorl safely, and the hundred scatter, every man looking for his own city.”

Wijzer frowned. “It you must finish.”

“When the time to return comes, do you think a hundred will reassemble at the lander?”

Wijzer shook his head. “No. Not a hundred there will be.”

Marrow made a little sound expressive of satisfaction. “Then why not let Silk take one of the empty seats?”

“Because none there may be. Not a hundred I said. Two hundred, maybe. When about this town that you got I ask, what they say it is? You know? The first it was. The first lander from the Whorl came, and here landed. True it is?”

“No,” I told him. “Another lander left some time before ours, with a group led by a man called Auk. They were also from Viron. Have you ever heard of them?”

Wijzer shook his head. “Someplace else they landed, maybe.”

“On Green,” I said, “or so I’ve been told. There was also another lander that left at the same time ours did. One lander wouldn’t hold all of us, and we had cards enough to restore two, so we took two. It came here with us, but we’ve never learned what became of Auk’s.”