The Old Lighthouse

On the night of the fourth day, Marlow went through the grate of the drain for the first time in three days.

Gus went first. With his hands out of use, twisting his body took him twice as long.

“Does it hurt?”

“Course it huuurts. Don't ask me things like that.”

The answer eased Marlow a little. Being eased made him angry at himself.

Out in the Forbidden Strip, the white ground looked brighter at night than by day. The salt was throwing the moonlight back.

He followed the line he had run three days before, and found the place where the blood had fallen right away. Black dots scattered over white ground. Twenty grains or so, all told.

Three days before he had seen only one.

“These multiplying?”

“They don't multiply. They were all there that night. Buried in the sand, that's all.”

“Then why's your blood putting out this many?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn't be walking to the old lighthouse.”

There were footprints around the grains. More than one person's. There were marks where the ground had been raked, too. Someone had started gathering them and had stopped partway.

“Somebody's been out here.”

“Not the army. The army takes all of it.”

Marlow did not pick them up. He had no wish to.

＊

The old lighthouse stood three kilometers north of there.

It was where the Sea Wall bent toward the sea. The rock rose high, and on the rock stood a stone column. The upper half was gone. What was left was a tube some ten meters tall, nothing more.

Three lamps were burning at its foot.

Outside the lamps stood Otto and Sam. Side by side, standing straight. Both of them in new clothes.

Gus quickened his step. Marlow caught his arm and stopped him.

“Let go.”

“Not yet. Wait.”

“I said let gooo!”

“We settle the talk first. Get the order wrong and neither of them comes back.”

Gus stopped. He stopped, but his breathing had gone ragged.

＊

In the middle of the lamps was Sybil Orvaine.

The lower half of her was a lion. Even lying down, her back came as high as Marlow's chest. The fur was ash-white, and under the moon it looked the color of bone. The claws of her forepaws had cut four shallow grooves into the surface of the rock.

From the shoulders up she was a woman. White hair, near silver, drawn into a thick braid and laid over one side. Her face was well made. Too well made. Left and right matched exactly, and nowhere in it was any of the small ruin a human face has. It was the kind of beauty that leaves you unsettled the longer you look.

Her eyes were pale gold, with no whites. She blinked slowly.

Around the shoulder blades were two large scars. Something had grown there and had been taken off at the root.

Marlow noticed how hard it was to take his eyes off her. And he did not like it.

“I believe I said two of you.”

Her voice was low and slow. She was not angry.

“There are two.”

“There are three.”

Willa came out from behind the rock.

“Go home. Right now.”

“No.”

“Willa.”

“…I don't know the way back.”

“You know the streets of this town better than I do, you.”

“I forgot them today.”

Sybil did not get angry.

“It does not matter. I set a number only because I wished to avoid a long conversation. Let us proceed with three.”

“Should've said so from the start.”

“I should have. I have a habit of being sparing with words. I will correct it.”

＊

Sybil folded her forepaws over again.

“Then I will speak in order. First, what I am. Next, what I want. Next, my reason. Last, what you want. Is that acceptable?”

“Yeah.”

“I am a merchant. I buy goods as well, but mostly I buy talk and sell it. From this town north to the sixth town there are some forty people who sell me talk. It was also I who put out a buying price three days ago, in the morning, before the ship came down.”

“Before it came down. Right.”

“Yes. I knew it would fall. I knew because three days earlier I had bought the manifest of that ship's cargo. I did not know where it would fall. Had I known, I would have had no need to hire scavengers.”

Beside him, Gus let out a breath.

“Next, what I want. The glass cylinder inside the iron box. There is water in it. I would like to have it.”

“Your reason.”

“I have three. I will give you all of them, with nothing kept back.”

Sybil raised one claw at a time to count.

“One. It is proof of a thing the Empire has kept hidden for three hundred years. Whoever holds proof can deal with the Empire.”

“Two. If I sell it, I can live at my leisure for the rest of my life. I am fond of money.”

“Three. I want to know where that water came from. This is the largest reason. I am the sort who cannot sleep while there is something I do not know, and that sort cost me my wings.”

“Haven't heard the story about the wings.”

“I will tell it if you ask. It has no bearing on tonight.”

＊

Marlow did not bring out the cylinder. He asked without bringing it out.

“What is it the Empire's hiding?”

“There are numbers cut into the cylinder's fitting. Did you read them?”

“Read them. Don't know what they mean.”

“The first four digits are a depth. Four thousand one hundred twenty. The unit is meters. It means the depth the water was drawn from.”

Sybil turned her white face toward the sea.

“The sea outside the wall is not two hundred meters deep at its deepest. There is no water at four thousand meters anywhere in this sea, however long you search.”

“Then where's that water from?”

“It is water from another sea. There is one more sea in this world. The Empire has kept it hidden for three hundred years.”

She said it so plainly that it took Marlow a moment to swallow it.

“One more sea.”

“There is. And I have a guess at where. That ship came from the east. There are signs it flew five days over land. At the far end of the east there is a country they call the Lonely Land.”

“Never heard of it.”

“The ones who know the name are mostly the ones who went. And the ones who went mostly do not come back.”

＊

Gus could wait no longer and stepped forward.

“Give me my people back.”

Gus said it. Marlow kept quiet. From here on it was the man's own deal.

Otto and Sam were still standing three paces off. Called by name, they did not look this way.

“First I will explain what has become of those two. Making a deal without hearing it is a loss to you.”

“Just give them back!”

“It will take a minute.”

Sybil turned her face toward Otto.

“Those two have taken no drug. They are not being controlled. What is in their heads, their memories, their bodies, all of it is as it was.”

“Only one thing is gone. The sense of being themselves.”

Gus opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

“Called by his name, he does not feel it is his name. Looking at his sister's face, he does not feel she is his sister. He remembers. He simply does not feel it.”

“When that happens, a person lives the easiest way there is. He does what someone tells him. It spares him from judging.”

“…Can it be fixed?”

“It can. The way back is known.”

“Do it.”

“There is a price. It is not money.”

“What. Say it.”

Sybil was quiet a short while. Then she said it without choosing her words.

“All of the water in your body. One person's water returns the sense to two. You will die. That is not a figure of speech. You will die on the spot.”

The oil in a lamp cracked once.

“I'll do it.”

“Gus.”

“Two of them for one of me. That's cheap, ain't it.”

“It's not cheap. Not cheap at all, a thing like that.”

“Twenty years I had with them. You wouldn't get it.”

“Course I wouldn't. I've never had anyone longer than three years.”

Once it was out of his mouth, he remembered Willa standing behind him.

“We will not do it tonight.”

“Why the hell not!”

“My tools are not here. I have a storehouse south of the town. We will do it there. I will send someone in ten days. Come, if your mind has not changed.”

“It won't change.”

“Two in three who say that change. If you change, I will say nothing of it. Nor is it a shame.”

＊

Sybil looked at Willa next.

“There is one thing I would like you to sell me. The grain in the pouch at your waist.”

Willa's hand went over the pouch.

“Nooo.”

“I will give you my reason. That grain is made from something that is neither cow nor sheep. I have never once seen such a grain. I want to examine it.”

“I get that, but no.”

“Let me hear your reason as well.”

“Because it doesn't have a stamp.”

Willa took the grain out of the pouch and laid it on her palm.

“A grain's got written on it what it erased, right? One cow, two sheep. This one's got nothing written on it. If you hand somebody one with nothing written on it, then nobody knows what it was anymore. Not ever.”

“You yourself know.”

“…I know. But when I die nobody does.”

Sybil pushed a flat stone tablet forward with a forepaw. A thin iron stylus lay on top of it.

“Then let us do this. I will take the grain. Write on this tablet what the grain was made from. The tablet will be bound into my ledger. Any time you say you wish to see it, I will show you.”

“…I'm allowed to write it?”

“You write it. If I write it, it becomes my words.”

Willa sat down in front of the tablet, thought a while, and cut something short into it. The cutting took her time. She is not a fast writer.

When she had finished, she set the grain on the stone.

Marlow leaned in to look. Willa covered it with her hand.

“Don't look!”

“Why not.”

“Because it's embarrassiiing!”

Sybil drew the tablet to her and read it. She read it, and said nothing.

＊

Last, Marlow asked.

“My turn. I'll say what I want.”

“Please.”

“People who come back from the far side of the wall turn in eleven days, they say. Today's my fourth. If you know how to stop it, tell me.”

“I do not know.”

The answer came at once.

“I will say it plainly. I do not know how to stop it. If I put you off, you will resent me for it later, so I say it first.”

“Then who knows.”

“If anyone knows, it is the east. Where the water was drawn. I cannot believe that people able to lower a man four thousand meters are unable to touch what is inside one man.”

“Eleven days. How long to the east?”

“Nineteen days one way, I am told.”

“Then I won't make it.”

“You will not.”

Sybil rose. Standing, she was far larger than he had thought.

“It is worth going even so. I will tell you why. Of the nine, not one went east. Every one of them stayed in the town and met the eleventh day. You would be the first.”

“You're testing it. On me.”

“I am testing it. I do not hide that. I am a creature that only wants to know.”

Marlow wanted to hit this lion. He knew hitting it would only break his arm.

“One thing I will give you for nothing.”

“What.”

“Every one who went east on fear alone turned back partway. If you go, do not go because you are afraid. Go to do something. Your legs will hold longer that way. In the seven days you have left, what is it you want to do?”

On her shoulder blades, the place where something had been taken from her caught the lamplight once.

End of Chapter 5