Free On Blue's waters by Gene Wolfe Page A

water against the return of the pet who is no longer on his perch.
    I am stunned to find this account as worthless as it is. It tells me nothing about myself (or Nettle, or the boys, or even Patera Silk) that I did not know already. It contains no plans for returning home, the very thing I should be thinking about most intently. Yet under these circumstances what plans can there be?
    I must free myself from these handsome, generous, feckless people upon some pretense, and somehow procure a swift horse. Conceivably some other beast, although I would think a horse would be best. I must escape with cards enough-or the new rectangles of gold we use for cards sometimes here-to enable me to buy a small but seaworthy vessel when I reach the coast. After that, it will be in the hands of the Outsider and the weather gods of Blue-of the monstrous goddess whom Seawrack called the Mother, perhaps.
    There is my plan, then. Under these circumstances, how can I plan anything more? The terrible aspect is that these people need someone like me very badly, and I am in a sense responsible for my own abduction.
    As well as for them. They have made me their ruler, in name and very nearly in fact, and I have accepted the office. I, who have only a single wife for whom I long, now have no less than fifteen more-all young enough to be my daughters. Fifteen graceful and charming girls whom I sometimes permit as a very special favor to sing and play for me while I sit dreaming of home.
    No, not of Old Viron, though I have been calling Old Viron “home” all my life. Dreaming of the house of logs at the foot of the Tor we built when we were young, of the napping tent of scraped and greased greenbuck skins upon the beach, and of eager, explanations of papermaking made to Nettle and-sometimes-to the wind. Dreaming of Lizard, the rushing water and thumping hammers of my mill, the measured clanking of the big gear, the crawl of the laden wire cloth, and the golden glory of the Short Sun sinking into the sea beyond a Tail Bay crammed with prime softwood.
    Once I planned to print our paper as well as make it. But I have written about that. What would be or could be the use of setting it down again?

-3-
    THE SIBYL AND THE SORCERESS
    T he Marrow I had known as a boy had been portly in the best sense, a fat man whose bulk promised strength and gave him a certain air of command. He was no longer steady on his legs, and limped along (as Silk once had) with the help of a stick; his face was lined, and such hair as remained to him was white. Yet I could tell him quite truthfully that he had scarcely changed since we had fought the Trivigauntis in the tunnels together. He was fat still, though somewhat less energetic than he had once been; and the air of command had become a settled fact.
    He was the same man.
    “I don’t need to talk to you,” he said. “I know you, Horn, and know you’ll do your best. That’s all I need to know. But maybe you need to talk to me. If there’s anything I can tell you, I will. If there’s anything you need, I’ll supply it if I can, or get somebody to.”
    I told him that I had come largely to buy provisions and get directions, that I had wanted to leave most of the food we had with my family; and I reminded him that he had promised to try to locate someone who had been to Pajarocu and could provide firsthand information regarding the best routes.
    “Food’s no problem.” He waved it away. “I’ll give you a barrel of apples, some dried stuff, cornmeal, and leavening powder.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “A ham, too. A case of wine and a cask of pickled pork.”
    I doubted that I would need that much, and I told him so.
    “Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. How was the voyage down?”
    I shrugged. “I lost my harpoon.”
    “I’ll get you another one, but it may take a day or two.”
    With thoughts of the leatherskin still fresh in my mind, I asked whether he could lend me a slug