The boat was veering a little to the left, I noticed, a little rockway. I didn’t want the boat to turn sideways to the wind, because then it would start to rock and the windcatcher would slap noisily against its tree, so I crept back to the steerpole. When the boat was straight again, I sat there for some time, listening to the rhythm of the men’s snoring and making sure that it was steady and even before I moved again.
Spear was nearest to the bags of stone, so I went to him first, looping the rope round one of his ankles, slowly slowly, gently gently, so that if he felt anything at all, it would be as gentle as a mother’s caress. He muttered in his sleep, and his tongue came out and felt along the numb left side of his mouth.
Suddenly I saw Blink coldly watching me. Before I could stop myself I gasped in fear, and the sound made both Snowleopard and Spear turn and grumble in their sleep. It was only then I realized that the eye that was watching me was just an empty hole.
I stayed where I was, squatting at Spear’s feet, while I waited for the snoring of all three men to settle back down again into a steady rhythm. And then, trying to avoid looking at that accusing eye, I crept across to Blink, gently stroking his shin to accustom him to my touch, and then looping the rope round his ankle, too.
Again I paused, listening to their breathing and watching the windcatcher. The boat was beginning to turn again, so I needed to get a move on. I went to Snowleopard: strong Snowleopard with the steady gaze, who I’d persuaded myself was my friend, and who sometimes in dreams I’d imagined naked in my arms. Of the three of them, he was the one I hated most. I looped the rope round his foot.
Then, once again, I checked the boatfloor. What could the men grab hold of? What could they cling to with their fingers or toes? How would I force them to let go? I picked up a paddle and stood patting it against my hand for a minute, while the men slept peacefully on. Inside their heads, I supposed, dreams must be unfolding as they did in the minds of everyone, unfolding and unfolding and unfolding, like life would go on forever.
I stuck the paddle out sideways in the water. The boat swung right round, the windcatcher flapping back against its tree. I kicked the first bag over the end.
Splash!
It plummeted downward into the shining water, snatching the second bag in straight after it.
Splash!
I stepped back just in time before the rope snapped tight across the boatfloor.
Splash!
Spear was dragged into the water. I could see his shadowy shape flailing beneath the surface as he woke and found he couldn’t breathe.
Blink jerked awake. He yelled and lunged out with his hands as he went sliding over the edge.
Splash!
Snowleopard tried to stop himself with his hands and his free foot. The whole boat tipped dangerously as he fought against the weight of the stones and the other men. His fingers found a gap in the boatfloor. He clung to it with his left hand, feeling around with his right for another grip.
I smashed the paddle down on his fingers with all my strength, and he gave a roar of rage and pain as he lost his hold and slid over the side.
Splash!
But the boat stayed tipped, its end dipping down so far into the water that I was afraid the whole thing might topple over. Snowleopard must still be clinging on.
I grabbed Blink’s spear and made my way carefully down the steep slope of the floor until I was looking straight down at Snowleopard’s white fingers under the water, and the dark outline of his face. Still alive below him, Blink and Spear were jerking him this way and that, but Snowleopard held on.
“Stab the spear into his face!” I muttered to myself.
But before I could move, he lunged upward. And there he was! Back out with me in the world of air, where he was never supposed to return, sucking in breath with a horrible choking sound.
He snatched out at my leg—
he almost had me—
but I pulled away just in time. And then he lost his grip. Without anything to hold him back, the heavy bags of greenstone yanked him quickly down to the bottom of the Pool.
“This is just a story,” I whispered.
I’d been thrown backward across the floor as the boat righted itself, banging my head on the windtree and knocking over the cage of bats.
“It’s just a dream. I’m not really here at all.”
But the world refused to change. I was still alone. The bats were still screeching in their toppled cage. I could even still see the men I’d done for down at the bottom, a single blurred lump of darkness with shining watertrees waving from side to side around it. However hard I tried, now remained now, here remained here, Eden remained Eden. Like a cage.
I pulled myself upright and walked unsteadily across the boat to right the bats’ cage, and then let them out. They huddled together at the foot of the windtree, snatching with their bony hands at the scraps of food that the rocking of the boat had strewn across the floor.
I could see the men in the water, a tree of darkness, with its roots made of stone, its trunk of rope, and its branches of human flesh. But their lungs had filled up, and the tree was slowly collapsing to the bottom. Soon the carrion fish would come and gnaw the meat from their bones.
Ha! That would teach them to try and trick me! That would teach them not to care, not even one little bit, about how another person felt!
But then again, now that they were dead, what purpose did I still have? Without my store of hate, there was nothing left to distract me from that cold cold stone inside me, pressing against my lungs and my heart, nothing to stop me seeing Greenstone in my head, as he fell and fell toward the fire.
“How do I know he’s dead, though?” I muttered.
Why should I believe Snowleopard, who had lied to me about everything else? And why would Chief Dixon have told an ordinary ringman about his plans?
My heart lifted. It was too early to grieve! Greenstone was alive and breathing still, and I could still try and help him! I was the Ringwearer, after all. I had the ring. I could go back to New Earth and use its power.
I rolled up the windcatcher, stepped down into the back end of the left-
hand sister-
boat, and began to dig in the water. Of course the boat started to pull sharply round to the right almost at once, and I had to stop digging so I could pull it back to the left. As soon as it was straight, I carried on paddling, but I could only get three digs in at most before the boat swung round and I had to stop again to get it straight.
I carried on like that for a little while—
three digs, steer; three digs, steer—
but then I realized I was still moving backward. Even without the windcatcher, the wind was pushing the boat faster back toward the Deep Darkness than my paddle could take it forward. I could even see the crumpled tree of dead men ahead of me, lying in a dark heap at the bottom of the bright bright water.
“Make the boat lighter,” I muttered.
I dragged the two remaining bags of greenstone to the back and pushed them over, throwing the bags of badjuice after them.
The boat was swinging round now, so I straightened it with the paddle, faced it back toward New Earth, and dug and dug as hard as I could. But when I stopped to steer, the dead men were not only still ahead of me, but further ahead than they had been before. Throwing the stones and badjuice off hadn’t helped, I could see now. It had made the boat easier for the wind to push, as much as it had made it easier for me, and the wind was just too strong for one person to be able to force the boat back against it. What else could I do? I dug and dug. But even though I was panting with the effort when I stopped to steer, the dark lump under the water had moved still further ahead of me. Never mind getting back to New Earth; I couldn’t even get back to the place where I’d drowned my dad’s three friends. Soon, they were so far ahead of me that I couldn’t see them at all.
I had no plan left. The boat spun slowly round and round, drifting all the while in the direction of Deep Darkness, between shining water and shining stars, each singing its silent song, beautiful and empty and meaningless.
But then I heard a sound, faintly faintly, carried on the wind.
Paaaaaaaaaaarp! Paaaaaaaaaaarp! Paaaaaaaaaaarp!
There was a silence for a moment, and then an answer came from further away in another direction. It was the sound of metal horns, the sound of purpose, the sound of human minds, pushing out greedily into the world. There were boats out on the Pool, faster boats than mine, searching for the whisperer who’d stolen Gela’s ring.
Paaaaaaaaaaarp! Paaaaaaaaaaarp! Paaaaaaaaaaarp!
I climbed up onto the floor again and peered out over the shining water, but I could see nothing at all but the smoothly glowing surface, pink and green, stretching away in every direction. Those other boats were still beyond World’s Edge, but at any moment one of them could appear above it and there I’d be: a spot of shadow under the black black sky, in a huge, bright circle of shining water. And then it would be too late. On my own I couldn’t possibly outrun a big boat with four five men paddling on either side of it.
I untied the windcatcher and tugged it out straight, then picked up the steerpole and pulled the boat round to face out toward Deep Darkness. All I could hope for was to reach it before I was seen.
Lucy Johnson
“I’m sorry about what happened,” Dixon said as we sat by ourselves in the Writingcave of the Headmanhouse. “I’m sorry I lost my temper. I’m sorry I hit you. I only did it because you were showing me up in front of my men. But now,
please,
will you do what I ask of you, for your own sake as well as mine?”
I laughed. “You want me to play the Ringwearer without a ring?”
“We’re still looking for it. We’ve got nineteen boats out on the water.”
“Nineteen boats to search whole of Worldpool. Well, that should be easy!”
“If we don’t find it on Pool, we’ll fetch it back from Old Ground.”
“Oh, yes? Do you even know where the fishing girl comes from?”
I looked over at the map painted on the wall. I could see New Earth. I could see tiny Middlehill. I could see Old Ground, with Veeklehouse and Brown River and Circle Valley. I could even see the ground behind Snowy Dark, where it’s said the followers of Tina Spiketree made their home. But there was no sign of the little waterhill where the fishing girl’s people lived.
“Teacher Michael says he tried many times to wheedle the secret out of her, but the little slinker would never tell. We’ll find it, though, don’t you worry, and we’ll find the ring as well. But in meantime we must show the small people that we have a new Headman and a new Ringwearer. You can wear another metal ring, until the old one’s found again. It’s only a ring, after all.”
“Oh, come on, Dixon! Every metaldigger knows, every flowergatherer, every slowhead stonebreaker, that the metal of Gela’s ring is yellow and white. No one’s going to be fooled by a bit of redmetal.”
“They will if you don’t go close to them, and don’t offer the ring to kiss.”
“What kind of Ringwearer will I be if I can never let anyone near the ring?”
“We’ll find ways round it.”
Ways round it! If the fool had only taken the ring off the girl’s finger here in the Headmanhouse, as any sensible person would have done, none of this would have happened! But this is where we were, and what choice did I have?
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Oh, thank you, Lucy, my darling, thank you.”
I’d never seen him so grateful. He actually got down on his knees at my feet and kissed my hands.
“We will get it back,” he repeated.
“You’d better. I do
not
want people in the future to tell stories about Lucy the fake Ringwearer.”
He stood up again, frowning. I could see he was making plans, and that I’d had all the kneeling and hand-
kissing I was going to get.
“You’re not the fake Ringwearer, Lucy. She was. And that’s what you need to tell people. Tell them she was from the Davidfolk. Tell them she was a whisperer. Tell them
.
.
.” He cast about in his mind for yet worse things to say about the fishing girl. “Tell them she might have pretended to be like them, but really she cared so little about their lives that if she had her way, she would have taken even the
bats
from them, and made them do the bats’ work.” He began to pace about. “We could actually turn what’s happened to our advantage, you know,” he said. “Tell them the truth about the ring, tell them that she stole it and took it back across the water to the Davidfolk. Then everyone in New Earth would agree that we needed to cross the Pool and take back Old Ground. Think about that, Lucy; I could be the Headman who brought Old Ground back to Gela and President and John, and you could be the first Ringwearer to take the ring to Veeklehouse and Circle Valley.”
“So
.
.
. no redmetal ring, then?”
“No, this is a better plan: an empty hand. Like Gela’s own hand was empty when she lost the ring. The Mother of Eden has lost the ring again, thanks to the wickedness of the Davidfolk, but we, your true and loving children, will turn all Eden upside down until we get it back for you.”
Yes, that was better, I thought. I’d have hated playing the Ringwearer with a fake ring, but a Ringwearer with no ring at all, a Ringwearer who’d had something dear and precious stolen from her—
that was a part I knew
well
.
Starlight Brooking
Paaaaaarp! Paaaaaarp! Paaaaaarp!
They were far far away still, a good distance back beyond World’s Edge and some distance over alpway as well, but there was more than one of them, and they were hunting together, letting one another know where they were, like we did on Grounds when we went out after a spearfish. Again and again I stood up and searched the water behind me, but there was really no purpose to it, because even if I did see them there was nowhere I could hide on the smooth, bright water, and no way of going any faster. All I could do now was make sure the boat was steady and the windcatcher bulging straight out in front, and hope to reach the Darkness before they found me.
I did that for the length of a waking, and then a waking after that.
I’d sunk down into a kind of half sleep when the horns suddenly blew again, much nearer than before. I was nearing the edge of the bright water. In fact, I could actually make out Deep Darkness ahead of me, for the brightness no longer ended in a long straight line, but met an uneven strip of blackness, fringed with breaking waves, that came in closer in some places than others. Dreading what I’d find, I stood up and looked back, and there it was: a dark shadow in the distance, moving over the pink-
green glow of the watertrees. They’d found me.
What should I do? The nearest tongue of dark water was over to my left, but if I turned too far that way, I’d lose the wind. On the other hand, if I went straight ahead, the dark water was still some distance away, hardly any nearer than the boat behind.
The horn blew again, and then I heard faintly faintly the sound of a man’s voice shouting across the water. A second boat had appeared behind it from beyond World’s Edge, and its horns were calling out as well:
Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
I decided to trade a little speed for the sake of a shorter distance to the shelter of darkness, and I turned a bit to the left: not so far as to lose the wind completely, but enough to make the catcher flap against its tree.
Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
The horns seemed to jeer at me as the two boats drew closer. I could make out a man now, standing at the front of the first one, peering toward me across the water. He was wearing a red wrap and I knew he must be a chief, someone I must have met and spoken to, someone who would have knelt and kissed the ring on my hand.
Paaaaarp! Paaaarp! Paaaarp!
I made myself look forward again to check the windcatcher and the boat’s direction. It was hard hard to sit still when I was being chased, hard to hold the steerpole steady and not to turn one way or the other just for the sake of something to do.
“Turn round!” called the chief on the boat behind me. “You can’t get away!”
His boat was closing on me, faster even than I’d feared it would, and the other boat was coming up behind it.
“I
can
get away,” I muttered. “I can.”
But I knew that even if I reached Deep Darkness first, that still wasn’t going to be enough, because they’d come after me and would have firecages to help them see. Somehow I had to hide myself in the darkness, place myself in a part of it they wouldn’t guess I’d go.
“Turn round, fishing girl, turn round!”
There were still some empty juicebags lying on the floor, and I had an idea. It wasn’t much of an idea, but the desire to do
something
became too much to resist. I left the steerpole and ran forward to toss the bags into the water to left and right.
“There’s your bloody ring!” I shouted back as loudly as I could. “You’d better get it before it sinks!”
Then I ran back again to the steerpole to bring the boat back onto the line I’d chosen.
I was almost at the edge of the bright water when the other boats reached the juicebags. But, whether because they hadn’t heard me or because they hadn’t believed me, they didn’t slow down the smallest bit or turn away even slightly from their line, the ringmen down either side just digging steadily forward through the water, as, far below me, the bottom of Worldpool dropped away like an underwater cliff and my boat bumped and tossed through rough waves and on into Deep Darkness.