On Blue's waters

“I know enough about you inhumi to frighten me ten times over. I know how strong you are, and that you can swim better than we can, and fly. I know how clever you are, too.”

“Do you really know how clever we are? Tell me. I’d love to hear it.”

“You speak my language as well as I do, and you could make me believe you were one of us if you wanted to. One of you was our Prolocutor in the Long Sun Whorl.” I hesitated. “Do I have to explain what a Prolocutor is?”

He shook his head. “Go on.”

“He pretended to be a doddering old man, but he saw through everybody and outwitted our Ayuntamiento over and over again. He outwitted the rest of us, too. We never doubted that he was human.”

“I see. He was a cunning foe, who nearly destroyed you.” At certain angles there was a light in the inhumu’s eyes that seemed almost a yellow flame.

“No, he wasn’t my enemy, he was my friend. Or at any rate he was Silk’s friend, and I was Silk’s friend, too.” Exhausted as I was, and sick with pain, I did not consider how unlikely it was that the inhumu had ever heard of Silk.

“Are you saying you hated this man because he befriended your friend?”

“I’ve made it sound too simple.”

“Most things are simple.”

“Patera Quetzal wasn’t a man at all, but we didn’t know it. He was one of you, and he drank blood!”

“I wish that I could talk to him.” The inhumu seemed to speak mostly to himself.

“He’s dead.”

“Oh. Really. You turned on your friend and killed him, when you found out he was one of us?”

I wanted to say that I wished I had, which would have been the plain truth; but I wanted much more-wanted desperately, in fact-to escape the pit. “We didn’t. We didn’t even know until he was dead. He was shot by the Trivigauntis we were fighting and died of his wound.” That was the plain truth as well.

“So you hate him now because he drank your blood and deceived you, and that hatred has been carried over to me? Is that all there is?”

“You drank Babbie’s blood.”

“Your hus? Yes, I did. What else?”

I actually began to tell him, saying, “I have a wife and children-”

“I know. On the isle they call the Lizard, or Lizard Island.”

I suppose I must have gaped.

“You’ve been answering questions for me, so I’ll answer that one for you. When I was on your boat, the siren who was with you said you’d spoken to people on another one. Do you remember that?”

“A siren?” I was bewildered, and in no condition to think. “Do you mean Seawrack?”

“If we accept that name as hers.”

“She’s very good-looking.” I tried to swallow, although my mouth was drier than the palms of my hands. “But she’s not a-a seductress. She’s still very young.”

He smiled. Until then I had forgotten that they could. “Let’s forget I used that word. The young lady with you said you had spoke to another boat.”

“You can’t have learned about us just from that.”

“Certainly I could have. I did. I found the boat, which wasn’t very far from yours, and talked to the men on it. They thought I was one of you, naturally, and I gave them valuable information, which I made up. In return, they told me your name and your wife’s and where you were going, which was the chief thing I wanted to know. There aren’t many towns where a man might be named Horn. I went to New Viron, which was the closest. We can fly, you know, a whole lot faster than your little boat can sail. I made more inquiries there, and I had no trouble at all.”

If my face was not grim at that moment, it lied; I was very close to trying to snatch my slug gun from him and kill him. “Did you harm my family?”

“No. I flew over your island and had a look at your house and your paper mill. I’m curious at times, like anybody else. I saw a woman there, standing on the beach and looking out to sea, an older and somewhat plainer woman than the new wife on your boat. I didn’t harm her, and I don’t think she saw me. Is that sufficient?”

I nodded.

“Fine. Take this back, will you?” He passed me my slug gun. “I can’t use it and you can, so you’d better have it.”

Numbly, I accepted it and pushed up the safety.

“You aren’t going to shoot me?” He raised his hands in a gesture of mock surrender.

“No. No, I’m not.”

“You’re remembering something. I sense it. Want to tell me what it is?”

“Nothing to the point.” My head ached, and the hope that had given me new life for a minute or two had guttered out. Should I put the muzzle into my mouth? That might be the best way.

“Tell me, please.”

Perhaps it was the shock of hearing one of these monsters say please; whatever the reason, I did. “I was recalling what a woman named Chenille once told Nettle about a man, a starving convict, named Gelada. He was in the tunnels. There are horrible tunnels running underground all through the Long Sun Whorl, where I used to live.”

“Gelada was in them,” the inhumu prompted me.

“He wanted to escape. Anybody would. He had a bow, but Auk, the man who was with Chenille, said he wouldn’t shoot them, because they were Gelada’s only chance. Without them, he would never get out.”