Wizard (17 page)

Chris had been set for a fast trip. It was just what one did in a canoe: put it on a fast stream and ride the white water.

“You might as well relax,” came the voice from behind him. “You’ll tire yourself out too soon and then go to sleep. Humans are extremely boring when they sleep. I know this part of the river well. There is nothing to watch out for between here and Aglaia. Here Ophion is forgiving.”

He put his paddle on the floor of the canoe and turned around. Valiha sat placidly just aft of the tarp-covered pallet of supplies. The paddle in her hands was twice as large as his own. Valiha looked completely relaxed with all four legs folded under her, and Chris thought that odd because he had not expected a being so like a horse to enjoy sitting like that.

“You people amaze me,” he said. “I thought I was hallucinating the first time I saw a Titanide climbing a tree. Now you turn out to be sailors, too.”

“You people amaze
me
,” Valiha countered. “How you balance is a mystery. When you run, you
begin by falling forward, and then your legs try to catch up with the rest of you. You live constantly on the edge of disaster.”

Chris laughed. “You’re right, you know. I do, at least.” He watched her paddling, and for a time there was no sound but the quiet gurgle made by her oar.

“I feel I ought to be helping you. Should we take turns rowing?”

“Sure. I’ll row three-quarters of a rev, and you can row the other quarter.”

“That’s hardly equitable.”

“I know what I’m doing. This isn’t work.”

“You’re moving us pretty fast.”

Valiha winked at him, then began to paddle in earnest. The canoe almost became airborne, skipping like a tossed stone. She kept it up for a few dozen strokes, then fell back into her relaxed rhythm.

“I could do that for a whole rev,” she said. “You might as well face the fact that I’m a lot stronger than you, even at your best. And right now you aren’t in condition. Get used to it gradually, okay?”

“I guess so. I still feel I ought to be doing something.”

“I agree. Lean back, and let me do the donkeywork.”

He did, but wished she had used another euphemism. It hit at the heart of something that had been bothering him.

“I’ve been feeling uncomfortable,” he said. “What it boils down to is, we are—that is, we humans are using you Titanides like … well, like draft animals.”

“We can carry a lot more than you can.”

“All right, I know that. But I don’t even have a pack. And … well, it somehow makes me feel I’m using you badly when—”

“Nervous about riding me, is that it?” She grinned at him and rolled her eyes. “Next you’ll be suggesting that you walk sometimes, to give me a rest, right?”

“Something like that.”

“Chris, there’s nothing more boring than taking a walk with a human.”

“Not even watching one sleep?”

“You got me. That’s more boring.”

“You seem to find us tedious.”

“Not at all, you are endlessly fascinating. One never knows what a human will do next, or from what motive. If we had universities, the best-attended classes would be in the Department of Human Studies. But I’m young and impatient, as the Wizard pointed out. If you wish, you may walk, and I will endeavor to slow down. I don’t know how the others will like it.”

“Forget it,” Chris said. “I just don’t want to be a burden. Literally.”

“You aren’t,” she assured him. “When you ride me, my heart lifts and my feet fly like the wind.” She was looking into his eyes with an odd expression on her face. He could not read it, but it made him want to change the subject.

“Why are you here, Valiha? Why are you in this boat, making this trip?”

“You mean just me or the other Titanides?” She went on without waiting for an answer. “Psaltery is here because he goes where Gaby goes. The same for Hornpipe. As for Hautbois, I presume it is because the Wizard often grants a child to those who circumnavigate the great river.”

“Really?” He laughed. “I wonder if she’ll grant me a child when I get back?” He expected her to laugh, but there was that look again. “But you didn’t say why you were coming. You’re … well, you’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Chris, I’m really sorry about running off and leaving you. I could—”

“Never mind that. You already apologized, and it makes me nervous to watch it anyway. But shouldn’t you be taking it easy?”

“That’s far in the future. It doesn’t inconvenience us much anyway. And I’m here because it’s a great honor to go with the Wizard. And because you are my friend.”

Once again there was that look.

* * *

“Can I join you?”

Chris looked up, startled. He had not been asleep, but neither had he been precisely awake. His knees were stiff from maintaining the same position for hours.

“Sure. Come aboard.” Gaby’s canoe had pulled alongside Chris and Valiha. Gaby stepped from one to the other and sat in front of Chris. She cocked her head to one side and looked dubious.

“Are you all right?”

“If you mean, am I crazy right now, you’d be the best judge of that.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“No, I’m serious.” And a little hurt, he admitted to himself. One had to stop feeling apologetic about it sometime or lose all self-respect. “I never know when I’m having what the doctors call an episode. It always seems perfectly reasonable behavior to me at the time.”

She looked sympathetic. “It must be terrible. I mean, to …” She looked at the sky and whistled thinly for a moment. “Gaby, shut your big mouth,” she said. She looked back at him. “I didn’t come to embarrass you, no matter what it might look like. Can we start over?”

“Hi! So good of you to drop in.”

“We should get together more often!” Gaby beamed back at him. “There were a few things I wanted to say, and then I’ll have to run.” She still seemed to feel awkward because having proclaimed that, she said nothing more for several minutes. She studied her hands, her feet, the interior of the boat. She looked at everything but Chris.

“I wanted to apologize for what happened on the dock,” she said at last.

“Apologize? To me? I don’t think I’m the one who needs it.”

“You’re not the one who needs it the
most
, obviously. But I can’t talk to her until she’s cooled off. Then I’ll crawl to her on my belly or do whatever she wants me to do to wipe it out. Because she’s right,
you know. She did nothing to deserve that.”

“That was my estimation, too.”

Gaby grimaced, but managed to look him in the eye.

“Right. And in a larger sense, none of you deserved it. We’re all in this together, and you all have a right to expect better behavior of me. I want you to know that you can in the future.”

“I’ll accept that. Consider it forgotten.” He reached out and shook her hand. When she made no move to leave, he thought it might be time to go a little deeper into the problem. But it wasn’t an easy thing to bring up.

“I was wondering… .” She raised her eyebrows and seemed relieved. “Well, to be blunt, what can we expect of Cirocco? Robin isn’t the only one who isn’t impressed so far.”

She nodded and ran both hands through her short hair.

“That’s what I wanted to talk about, really. I want you to realize that you’ve seen only one side of her. There’s more. Quite a lot more, actually.”

He said nothing.

“Right. What can you expect? Frankly, not a lot for the next few days. Robin was telling the truth when she said Rocky’s luggage is mostly alcohol. I dropped most of it in the drink a few minutes ago. It took me three days to get her presentable for Carnival, and as soon as it was over, she spun off the wheel again. She’ll want to drink more when she wakes up, and I’ll let her, a little, because tapering her off is easier than cold turkey. After that I’ll keep just a little bit, for emergencies, in Psaltery’s saddlebag.”

She leaned forward and looked at him earnestly.

“I know this is going to be hard to believe, but in a few days, when she gets over the withdrawal and away from the memories of Carnival, she’ll be okay. You’re seeing her at her worst. At her best, she’s got more guts than all of us put together. And more decency, and compassion, and … there’s no use my telling you that. You’ll either see it for yourself or always think she’s a sot.”

“I’m willing to keep an open mind about it,” Chris offered.

She studied his face in that intense way of hers. He felt every gram of her considerable energy boring in, as if her whole being were intent on knowing what was inside him, and he didn’t like it. It felt as if she could see things even he was not aware of.

“I think you will,” she said at last.

Another silence descended. Chris felt sure she had more to say, so he prompted her again.

“I don’t understand about Carnival,” he said. “You said, ‘get away from the memories of Carnival.’ Why is that necessary?”

She put her elbows on her knees and laced her fingers together.

“What did you see at Carnival?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “A lot of singing and dancing and feasting, lots of pretty colors, flowers, good food. The tourists would love Carnival, but the Titanides don’t let them go see it. The reason is it’s a very serious business.”

“I know that. I understand what it’s for.”

“You think you do. You understand the primary purpose, I’ll grant you. It’s an effective method of population control, which is something nobody’s ever liked, human or Titanide, when it’s aimed at them. It’s fine for those other trashy folks.” She raised her eyebrows, and he nodded.

“What did you think of the Wizard’s part in the Carnival?” she asked.

He considered it. “She seemed to take it seriously. I don’t know what standards she was using, but she seemed to be making a thorough study of all the proposals.”

Gaby nodded. “She does. She knows more about Titanide breeding than Titanides do. She’s older than any of them. She’s been going to Carnivals for seventy-five years now.

“At first she liked them.” Gaby shrugged. “Who wouldn’t? She’s a very big cheese here in Gaea, which you and Robin don’t really seem to grasp yet. At Carnival, she gets her ego built up. Everybody needs that. Maybe she’s been a little too eager to get it, but that’s not for me to judge.” She looked away from him again, and he thought, correctly as it turned out, that she did have a few judgments to make on that subject. He realized Gaby was one of those people who cannot look someone in the face while lying
to them. He liked her for it; he was the same way.

“After a while, though, it began to wear on her. There’s a lot of despair at Carnival. You don’t see it because Titanides grieve in private. And I’m not saying they go out and kill themselves if they don’t get picked. I’ve never heard of a Titanide suicide. Still, she was the cause of a lot of sorrow. She kept at it for a long time after the fun had gone out of it, you understand, out of a sense of duty, but about twenty years ago she decided she had done all that could be expected of anybody. It was time to hand the job over to someone else. She went to Gaea and asked to be relieved of the job. And Gaea refused.”

She looked at him intently, waiting for him to understand. He did not yet, not completely. Gaby leaned back in the bow of the boat, her hands laced behind her head. She stared at the clouds.

“Rocky took her job with some reservations,” Gaby said. “I was with her, so I know. She went into it with what she thought were open eyes. She did not trust Gaea to be completely true to her word; she was ready for some jokers in the deck. The funny thing, though, was that Gaea
did
live up to her end of the bargain. There were some good years. Some close calls, some really bad troubles, but all in all they were the best years of her life. Mine, too. You’d never hear either of us complaining, even when things got dangerous, because we knew what we were getting into when we decided not to go back to Earth. Gaea did
not
promise an easy ride. She said that we could live to a
very
ripe old age, so long as we kept on our toes. That’s all been precisely as promised.

“We didn’t think much about getting older because we
didn’t
.” She laughed, with a hint of self-deprecation. “We were sort of like the heroes of a serial or a comic strip. ‘Join us again next week …’ and there we’d be, unchanged, off on a new adventure. I built a road around Gaea. Cirocco got carried off by King Kong and had to get loose. We … hell, shut me up, please. You walk into an old folks’ home, you get stories.”

“It’s all right,” Chris said, amused. He had already thought of the comic-strip analogy. The lives of these two women had been so divorced from the reality he knew as to make them seem less than real. Yet here she was, a century old and real as a kick in the pants.

“So Rocky finally came up against it. The joker, and it was a hell of a trick. We should have expected it, though. Gaea does not conceal the fact that she never gives something for nothing. We had drought we were satisfying our end of that deal, but she wanted more. Here’s how the swindle worked.

“You saw her put the Titanide egg in her mouth at Carnival?” Chris nodded, and she went on. “It changed color. It turned clear as glass. The thing is, no Titanide egg can be completely fertilized until that change occurs.”

“You mean until it’s put in someone’s mouth?”

“You’ve
almost
got it. A Titanide mouth won’t do the job. It has to be a human mouth. In fact, it has to be a particular human.”

Chris started to say something, stopped, and sat back.

“Just her?”

“The one and only wonderful Wizard of Gaea.”

He didn’t want her to go on talking. He saw it now, but she insisted on being sure he saw all the implications.

“Until and unless Gaea ever changes her mind,” she went on relentlessly, “Rocky is solely and completely responsible for the survival of the race of Titanides. When she realized that, she skipped a Carnival. She could not face another one, she said. It was too much to put on any one person. What if she were to die? Gaea wouldn’t give her an answer. Gaea is perfectly capable of letting the race vanish if Rocky leaves here, if she stops going to Carnival, or even if she dies.