On Blue's waters

Here I would like very much to write that I killed it with Sinew’s knife; the truth is that I do not know. A slug is a formidable projectile, so much so that a single shot will often fell a horse or a fourhorn, as I have seen, and when we examined the carcass of the creature from the tarn I found that both my shots had struck it within a hand of its head. I cannot doubt that both did a good deal of damage, although the first clearly did not do enough to prevent the thing’s pursuing us when it had recovered from the initial shock.

Babbie’s efforts must be considered, too. Certainly the wounds he inflicted on it in the space of five or ten seconds would have killed half a dozen men.

Yet, in my heart of hearts, I believe that it was Sinew’s long hunting knife, that in stabbing frantically at the only parts of the creature I could reach I struck some vital organ by chance. I believe that was what happened, I say. I cannot be sure.

Afterward I examined the knife with care and found that I had dulled its edge somewhat when I had cut the wood, although not nearly as much as I had feared. Since I have not described it in detail until now, I believe, I shall do so here. The blade was a hand and two fingers in length, two fingers wide, and very thick and strong at the back. It was a single-edged knife made for skinning and cutting up game, not a dagger, and had been forged (both blade and grip) from a single billet of steel by a smith in New Viron, who had followed a sketch that my son Sinew had made for him. The minor god Hephaestus, who in Old Viron we reckoned the patron of all who worked with fire, stood invisible behind Gadwall as he worked, I feel certain. I have heard men speak of better blades, but I have never met with one.

I got a bad fright today. I was to sacrifice an elephant in the temple, this at the urging of the priests, who seem to feel that a large and valuable animal will provide better omens than a sheep or goat. Seeing me await it with the sacred sword in my hand, the elephant appeared to understand what we had intended, and broke free from its weeping trainer, trumpeting and flailing its trunks like muscular whips. I stood as still as any statue when it charged, knowing that to move would be to die. It knocked me down and did a great deal of damage before it could be brought under control again, and I find that I am being hailed as a man of superhuman courage; but I trembled and wept like a little child when I was alone.

So it was after the devil-fish was dead. Perhaps I would have behaved better if another human being had been present, but as it was, my hands shook so violently that I found it very difficult to sheath Sinew’s knife. We like to think (or at any rate I always have) that our arms and legs will not betray us; but in moments like that we learn just how wrong we are. My hands trembled, my knees had lost their strength, and tears I could scarcely blink back threatened to wash the devil-fish’s blood from my face. I tried to joke with Babbie then, to make light of what had happened to us; my teeth chattered so badly, however, that he thought I was angry and stood well clear of me, lagging behind so as to keep me under observation for safety’s sake.

The most logical thing to do would have been to return to the tarn and wash there. The thought filled me with horror, and I promised myself instead that I would wash in the sea; and so I was covered with blood when we returned to the sloop and found Seawrack waiting on board. It is a testament to her courage that she did not scream at the sight and leap back into the water.

As for me, I was ready to believe that fear and the fight with the monstrous bat-fish had destroyed my reason. To see her as I saw her then, naked except for her gold and the waist-length mantle of her hair (which was gold too in places, but in others green), you must imagine first the days and nights at sea and the hours-long walk across that featureless green plain, where it seemed that no one and nothing lived in the whole whorl but Babbie and me.

- 6- SEAWRACK

Ambassadors from a distant town arrived today. It is called Skany, or at least that is as close as I can come to the name. Its ambassadors are three gray-bearded men, dignified and grave but not humorless, who rode mules and were accompanied by thirty or forty armed servants on foot. They had been told that Silk was here, “ruling Gaon,” and wished to invite me to rule Skany as well.

I explained that I did not rule (for I am in reality no more than an advisor to the people here) and that I could not and would not take responsibility for two towns so widely separated.