to address all three jointly. I knelt, and found myself tongue-tied. How could I address those three as a group? Pas might or might not be Silk, in part at least. Sinew had been quite correct about that. From what Auk and Chenille had told Nettle and me, Pas’s daughter Scylla was willful, violent, and vindictive. If ever a goddess seemed apt to resent being put in second place, it was she.
The Outsider seemed to me at that time as faceless and mysterious as the god or gods of the ancient inhabitants of this whorl we call Blue. He was, moreover, the god of outcasts and outlaws, of the broken and discarded. I considered myself neither an outcast nor an outlaw; and far from being discarded, I was about to undertake a mission of utmost importance for my town. Such being the case, what could I find to say to him? That I had no claim on his benevolence, but hoped for his help without one?
In the end, I prayed to whatever god might hear, stressing the helplessness and hopelessness we settlers felt, who had left our manteions and their Sacred Windows behind us, with so much else that we held dear, in obedience to Pas. A wind from the west, north, or east would be of greatest service to me, I told the hypothetical god. I had to go to New Viron, and eventually reach Pajarocu-a town quite unknown to me-before its lander lifted off. The feeblest breeze would be more than welcome, if only it would move my boat.
Had I ended my prayer there, I might have saved myself an infinity of fear and dismay; but I did not. Out of my heart I spoke of my loneliness and of the feelings of isolation that had swept over me as I waited half a day and more for a change in weather. Then I promised to learn all that I could about the Outsider and the gods of this whorl, to honor Pas and Scylla most highly if I ever returned to the whorl in which I was born, and to do anything in my power to bring them both here if they were not here already. I also (but this was to myself) solemnly swore to buy sweeps when I got to New Viron; and I recited every prayer that I could recall.
All this, as you may imagine, occupied quite some time. When I lifted my head at last, it was already shadelow, with only the smallest crescent of the Short Sun visible above the western horizon. Day was passing; but something else had gone before it, or so I felt. For what must have been half a dozen minutes, I watched the Short Sun set and looked about me, hoping to learn what it had been. The sloop seemed unchanged, with only a trifle more water in its bilge than there had been after I had bailed it. The sky was darker, and its few clouds ruddy in place of white, but that was only to be expected. The dim and distant shore of Main (I thought of it as distant, at least) was nearly black now, but otherwise the same.
At length it came to me: the trolling seabird had vanished. I had complained, most probably to no god at all, of loneliness. I had begged for company. And the only living thing in sight had been taken away. Here was proof of the cruelty of the gods, or of their absence from the whorl to which their king and father had consigned us.
Thinking of it I began to laugh, but was interrupted by a loud plop as my fishing float was jerked beneath the silvery surface. I reached for the line. It broke and vanished before I could touch it, leaving me with two slack cubits or so tied to a belaying pin. I was still staring down at the water when the sloop rocked so violently that I was almost thrown overboard.
The horror of it will never leave me entirely. Looking behind me, I saw great, coarse claws, each as thick as the handle of our ax, scrabbling for hold on the port gunwale and rowling its wood like so many gouges. A moment later the head appeared and shot toward me, the clash of its three jaws like the slamming of double doors. I threw myself backward to escape it, and fell into the sea.
I nearly drowned. Not because of the roughness of the water-there was none-nor because of
The Outsider seemed to me at that time as faceless and mysterious as the god or gods of the ancient inhabitants of this whorl we call Blue. He was, moreover, the god of outcasts and outlaws, of the broken and discarded. I considered myself neither an outcast nor an outlaw; and far from being discarded, I was about to undertake a mission of utmost importance for my town. Such being the case, what could I find to say to him? That I had no claim on his benevolence, but hoped for his help without one?
In the end, I prayed to whatever god might hear, stressing the helplessness and hopelessness we settlers felt, who had left our manteions and their Sacred Windows behind us, with so much else that we held dear, in obedience to Pas. A wind from the west, north, or east would be of greatest service to me, I told the hypothetical god. I had to go to New Viron, and eventually reach Pajarocu-a town quite unknown to me-before its lander lifted off. The feeblest breeze would be more than welcome, if only it would move my boat.
Had I ended my prayer there, I might have saved myself an infinity of fear and dismay; but I did not. Out of my heart I spoke of my loneliness and of the feelings of isolation that had swept over me as I waited half a day and more for a change in weather. Then I promised to learn all that I could about the Outsider and the gods of this whorl, to honor Pas and Scylla most highly if I ever returned to the whorl in which I was born, and to do anything in my power to bring them both here if they were not here already. I also (but this was to myself) solemnly swore to buy sweeps when I got to New Viron; and I recited every prayer that I could recall.
All this, as you may imagine, occupied quite some time. When I lifted my head at last, it was already shadelow, with only the smallest crescent of the Short Sun visible above the western horizon. Day was passing; but something else had gone before it, or so I felt. For what must have been half a dozen minutes, I watched the Short Sun set and looked about me, hoping to learn what it had been. The sloop seemed unchanged, with only a trifle more water in its bilge than there had been after I had bailed it. The sky was darker, and its few clouds ruddy in place of white, but that was only to be expected. The dim and distant shore of Main (I thought of it as distant, at least) was nearly black now, but otherwise the same.
At length it came to me: the trolling seabird had vanished. I had complained, most probably to no god at all, of loneliness. I had begged for company. And the only living thing in sight had been taken away. Here was proof of the cruelty of the gods, or of their absence from the whorl to which their king and father had consigned us.
Thinking of it I began to laugh, but was interrupted by a loud plop as my fishing float was jerked beneath the silvery surface. I reached for the line. It broke and vanished before I could touch it, leaving me with two slack cubits or so tied to a belaying pin. I was still staring down at the water when the sloop rocked so violently that I was almost thrown overboard.
The horror of it will never leave me entirely. Looking behind me, I saw great, coarse claws, each as thick as the handle of our ax, scrabbling for hold on the port gunwale and rowling its wood like so many gouges. A moment later the head appeared and shot toward me, the clash of its three jaws like the slamming of double doors. I threw myself backward to escape it, and fell into the sea.
I nearly drowned. Not because of the roughness of the water-there was none-nor because of
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