On Blue's waters

Let me make one thing clear before I go further. I did not trust Wijzer completely. He seemed a trader not greatly different from dozens of others who sail up and down our coast, having begun, perhaps, with a cargo of iron kitchenware and exchanged it for copper ingots, and exchanged the ingots for paper and timber in New Viron, always in search of a cargo that will bring immense profit when it is sold in their home port. I was afraid that Wijzer might be lying to make himself seem more widely traveled than he was, or even that he might not want Silk brought here for reasons of his own. In all this I wronged him, as I now know. He had been to Pajarocu, and he advised me to the best of his ability.

Some people have accused Nettle and me of penning a work of fiction; and even though that is a slander, we did present certain imagined conversations when we knew roughly what had been said and what had been decided-that among Generalissimo Oosik, General Mint, Councilor Potto, and Generalissimo Siyuf, for example. We knew how each of the four talked, and what the upshot of their talk had been, and ventured to supply details to show each at his or her most characteristic.

If this were a similar work, instead of the unvarnished, straightforward account that I intend, I would simply explain why I doubted Wijzer, and leave the reader in suspense as to whether those doubts were justified. It is not. Because it is not, I want to say here plainly that except for some slight exaggerations of coastal features and the omission of many small islands (notably that terrible island on which I fell into the pit) his map was remarkably accurate, at least regarding the areas through which I traveled in my long search for the elusive Pajarocu, called a town.

Before I returned to my boat that evening, I bought a tightly fitted little box of oily desertwood and a stick of sealing wax; once back on board, I studied the map with care, then put it into the box with my copy of the letter, melting the wax in the flame of my lantern and dripping it over every joint, a process that Babbie watched with more interest than I would have expected any beast save Oreb to show.

He was there still, although I had half expected to find him gone when I came back. It was the first time that I left him on the boat alone.

With the robbery still fresh in my memory, it was almost pleasant to have him. Although my boat had never been pillaged before on the few occasions when I had left it tied to a pier with no one on board, I had known that others had been, and that some had lost their boats. To confess the truth, when I returned to mine that first night I had been happy to find the damage and losses no worse than they were. Normally we had taken Sinew or (more often) the twins, so as to have someone to watch the sloop while Nettle and I traded our paper for items we needed but could not grow or make for ourselves, or for spirits, food, and clothing we could trade with the loggers.

“We’ll be going for a sail in the morning,” I told Babbie. “If you want to go ashore, now’s the time.” He only grunted and retreated to the foredeck, his expression (as stubborn as Wijzer’s own) saying You won’t sail off without me.

Naturally it had occurred to me that I might put out that very night, but I was tired and there was scarcely a breath of wind; in all probability it would have meant a good deal of work for nothing.

It might also have altered the course of events radically, if the wind had picked up enough for me to pass the Lizard while it was still dark.

Who can say?

It is very late, yet I feel I must write a little tonight, must continue this narrative I have not touched for three days or abandon it altogether. How odd to come to it by lamplight and read that I went to sleep instead of putting out from New Viron. I was so confident then that the lander at Pajarocu would fly as soon as it was ready, that it would return to the Whorl as promised, and that I would be on it if only I arrived in time. I was a child, and Marrow and the rest (whom I thought men and women as I thought myself a man grown), were only older children who risked far less.

The storms are worse. There was a bad one today, though it is nearly spent as my clock’s hands close. Almost all our date palms are gone, they say, and we will miss them terribly. I must remember to find out how long a seedling must grow before it bears. Twelve years? Let us hope it is not as long as that. The people are apprehensive, even the troopers of my bodyguard. Tonight I gathered some around me while the storm raged outside.

“A few of you seem to think that since the inhumi cross the abyss at conjunction they must leave before conjunction is past,” I said. “Why should they, when there are so many of us here, so much blood for them? I tell you that though some who have tarried here for years will leave as the whorls conjoin, returning to Green to breed, most will remain. Do you doubt me?”