Read Online In Green's Jungles by Gene Wolfe - Free Book Online

happily. Let us hope that neither of these girls has to endure such things."
    A cheerful, round-faced young woman in a dirty apron came in to tell us that dinner was ready, and Inclito jumped from his chair. "Wonderful! I'm starving, Onie. Have you cooked up something special for me?"
    She winked at him and said, "We think you'll like it," and all five of us followed him into a good-sized dining room with a fire blazing in the fireplace at one end and all four quarters of a yearling steer turning on a spit. Inclito complained of the heat at once and opened two windows, and to tell the truth I would not have been sorry if he had opened two more, though Fava exchanged her seat with Mora in order to sit nearer the fire.
    Inclito's mother drew her shawl more tightly about her shoulders. "It's your turn, Incanto. We'll try to pass the food around quietly so you can talk."
    Inclito handed me the wine bottle as she spoke. I thanked him and refilled my glass. "I'm very glad that our host's mother's story preceded mine," I began, "because up until then I had been trying to think of one that might win. After hearing it, I realize that I have no chance, and can tell whatever foolish tale I want. That's what I'm going to do, but I have a question for all of you first. I'm not telling my story now, so you can answer me out loud and say anything that you like. Have you ever known anyone who returned alive from Green?"
    Mora said, "Nobody can go there. You'd have to have a lander of your own, one that you could make obey you."
    Inclito's mother added, "Isn't that where the inhumi come from? That's what everybody says, and the people who went there from the Whorl are all dead."
    I looked at Fava, who shook her head.
    Inclito rumbled, "How could anybody know where everybody's been?"
    "To the best of your knowledge," I told him.
    "I think maybe… No." He shook his head. "Not that I know about."
    "This story is about a man on Green," I told them. "I'm not asking you to accept it. If you enjoy hearing it tonight, that's more than enough for me."
    Here I ought to set down my own story, but I have written myself out already. I will leave it for next time-with Oreb's return, which was actually quite funny. But before I shut up this old pen case that my father must surely have left for me to find, I would like to record a very strange dream I had last night in the shop. I would love to know what it means, and If I don't write about it soon, it seems likely I will forget it.
    I was back in the pit, sitting in the middle of it as I actually did for so many hours. A copy of the Chrasmologic Writings lay next to me, a student's copy, thick and small, on very thin paper. Thinking that I might as well prepare my mind for Scylsday, I picked it up and opened it. Opposite the printed page was a picture of Scylla in red, and while I studied the facing page she struggled to escape from hers. I thought, "Oh, yes. What seems like a picture to me seems like a membrane to her, a greased skin stretched tight over the Sacred Window." In my dream this peculiar idea struck me as perfectly true and perfectly ordinary, something that I had known all my life but had rather lost sight of.
    At the end of each verse I read, I watched her straining against the page with all ten arms. Very faintly I could hear her cry, "Help! Help!" And then, "Beware! Beware!," like the bird in Inclito's mother's story. I woke up-or thought that I did-but the printed Scylla was still with me, calling out, "Help me! Help me!"
    I sat up and stared around at the little stationery shop as though I had never seen paper or ledgers before; and in the precisely the same voice Oreb exclaimed (as he so often does), "Watch out!"

4
    MY OWN STORY: THE MAN WITH THE BLACK SWORD
    I know nothing about Grandecitta, nor do I know what other cities you and your mother may have seen before you left the Whorl, Inclito. But I doubt that you have ever seen a city like the City of the Inhumi on Green. Before I