On Blue's waters

“Correct. It doesn’t matter in the least. I’ll have an easier time of it up there with less competition, that’s all. And there’ll be one fewer of us down here preying upon your friends and family.” He was silent for a few seconds, gauging my reaction. “Suppose I leave you where you are. Who will prey upon your family then, Horn? That nice woman I saw, and whatever children the two of you have back home on Lizard Island? No doubt you’ve thought about it?”

I shook my head.

“Why, I will. I’ll leave you in here, but I won’t just leave you here and forget you. I’ll go back there bringing word of you, and you won’t be there to protect them. Do I have to speak more clearly tian that? I will if I must.”

I shook my head again. “I’ll swear to whatever you want me to swear to, by Pas and the Outsider, and your god, too, if you’ll let me.”

“You’ll have my friendship and assistance. Do I have to go through that again?”

“No,” I said.

“Then swear you’ll accept both. You’re not to kill or injure me, or drive me away, or betray me to anyone else for any reason whatsoever. You’re to do everything you can to see to it that I’m on the lander when it takes off. That we both are.”

I swore, stumbling at times over the phrasing but corrected by him.

When I was finished, he turned away. “I’m sorry, Horn. I really am. That was close. You tried very hard. If I can, I’ll be back tomorrow.” Before I could say a word, he had begun to climb the wall of the pit.

I broke. I am a coward at heart, I suppose. Perhaps all men are, but I certainly am. I pleaded. I begged. I wept and shrieked aloud, and wept again.

And when I did, he turned back. Krait the inhumu turned at the edge of the pit, and looked down upon me in my misery. He may have been smiling or grinning or snarling. I do not know. “Horn?” he said.

“Yes!” I raised my arms, imploring him. Tears streamed down my face as they had when I was a child.

“Horn, your oath didn’t convince me. I don’t think any oath you could give would. Not today, and probably never. I can’t trust you, and I don’t know of anything that would…” He stopped, perhaps only to watch me weep.

“Wait!” My sobs were choking me. “Please wait. Will you let me talk?”

He nodded. “For a minute or two, as long as you don’t talk nonsense.”

“Hear me out-that’s all I ask. My house is on the Lizard. You’ve seen it. You said you flew over it and saw Nettle on the beach.”

“Go on.”

“I built it, and we’ve lived there for years. I know how things are done in our house. Isn’t that obvious? You’ve got to believe me.”

He nodded again. “I do, so far.”

“There are bars on the windows and inside the flue. There are good locks on both doors, and bars for them as well. Heavy wooden bars that you put up and lift down. When conjunction is near-”

“As it is. Go on.”

“When conjunction’s near, we always bar the doors. My wife bars them at shadelow, even if I’m still working in the mill. I have to knock and be let in.”

“You’re proposing that I knock and imitate your voice. I could doit.”

“No,” I said, and shook my head. “Let me finish, please. It-it’s something better.”

In his own voice, which might have been Sinew’s, he said, “Let’s hear it.”

“When conjunction’s past, she forgets. She never bars them then. I’ve spoken to her about it, but it didn’t help. Unless I bar them, they aren’t barred.”

I reached into my pocket, got the key, and held it out. “You want to go to the Whorl. But if you don’t go-if we don’t-you’ll be here. And you’ll have the key.”

He hesitated. Perhaps his hesitation was feigned; I do not know.

I said, “If we get to the Whorl, you and I both, I want you to promise me you’ll give it back.”

“You trust my promise?” His face was as expressionless as the face of a snake.

“Yes. Yes, I must.”

“Then trust this one. I’ll get you out at once, as soon as you throw me that key.”

I did. I was too weak to throw it out of the pit the first time; it rang against the stone side a hand’s breadth below the top, and fell back in. I tried to run and catch it in the air, and nearly fell myself.

“I’m waiting, Horn.” He was kneeling at the edge, his hands ready.

I threw again, and watched those scaly hands close around it.

Without a word, he stood, dropped the key into his pocket, turned, and walked haltingly away.

There are times when time means nothing. That was one. My heart pounded like a hammer, and I tried to clean my face with my fingers.

When he came back, it might almost have been a theophany. I had wanted to see him so much that when I did I was horribly afraid that I was imagining it. “Get my slug gun,” he said. “We may need it.”

I did as I was told, slinging it across my back.

“I’m not heavy enough to pull you up. You’d pull me in.” He tossed down a coil of rope. “I’ve tied the other end to one of these little bushes. If you can climb up, you’ll be out. If you can’t…” He shrugged.