In Green's Jungles tbotss-2 Read online

  In Green's Jungles

  ( The Book of the Short Sun - 2 )

  Gene Wolfe

  Gene Wolfe

  In Green's Jungle

  Respectfully dedicated to Maddie and Becca

  Proper Names in the Text

  Many of the persons and places mentioned in this book first appeared in The Book of the Long Sun, to which the reader is referred. In the following list, the most significant names are given in CAPITALS, less significant names in italics.

  Colonel Abanja, Generalissimo Siyuf's chief intelligence officer.

  Captain Adatta, INCANTO'S chief female subordinate at the Battle of BLANKO.

  Affito INCLITO'S coachman.

  Atteno, INCANTO'S host in BLANKO, a stationer.

  Auk, the thief who led a party of colonists from VIRON to GREEN.

  Babbie, a hus given to HORN by Mucor.

  Badour, the guard who leaves his post to take

  INCANTO, HIDE, JAHLEE, MORA, and others to his officer.

  Bala, SINEW'S wife.

  Colonel Bello, an officer in the horde of BLANKO.

  BLANKO, a town on BLUE founded by colonists from Grandecitta.

  BLUE, the better of the two habitable planets of the SHORT SUN System.

  Bricco, a small child cared for by FAVA.

  Br una, a docile mule belonging to INCLITO.

  Cantoro, a merchant of BLANKO.

  Casco, a jealous suitor, long ago.

  Chaku, a mercenary from Gaon.

  Chenille, the wife who accompanied Auk to GREEN.

  Chrasmologic Writings, the sacred book revered in VIRON.

  Comus, a minor god, Pas's jester.

  Cugino, the woodcutter who makes a staff for INCANTO.

  Cuoio, the name by which HIDE is known in BLANKO.

  Decina,, the cook at INCLITO'S farm.

  Dentro, a young man who fell in love with a Strega long ago.

  Eco, one of the messengers chosen by INCLITO.

  Evensong, the concubine who stowed away on INCANTO'S boat.

  FAVA, a houseguest at INCLITO'S, MORA'S playmate.

  Gagliardo, an astronomer of SOLDO.

  Gaon, a large and prosperous town southeast of BLANKO.

  Gioioso, one of Salica's unlucky husbands.

  Gorak, a mercenary sergeant.

  Grandecitta, a skyland city of the LONG SUN WHORL.

  GREEN, the worse of the habitable planets of the SHORT SUN System.

  Corporal Hammerstone, a soldier in the army of VIRON.

  HIDE, one of HORN'S twin sons.

  Hierax, the god of death in the LONG SUN WHORL.

  Hoof, HIDE'S brother, one of HORN'S twin sons.

  HORN, a paper-maker of NEW VIRON, appointed to bring SILK to BLUE.

  Hyacinth, a beautiful woman of VIRON, SILK'S wife.

  INCANTO, the name by which the former Rajan of Gaon is known in BLANKO. (Also the name of INCLITO'S older brother, who died in infancy.)

  INCLITO, the leading citizen of BLANKO.

  JAHLEE, the first of the inhumi rescued by INCANTO and Evensong.

  Lieutenant Karabin, a mercenary officer.

  Karn, a two-year-old boy, SINEW'S son.

  Krait, the inhumu who rescued HORN from a pit.

  Captain Kupus, the leader of the mercenaries.

  Legaro, the ambassador sent by Novella Citta.

  LIZARD, an island north of NEW VIRON, the site of HORN'S mill.

  LONG SUN WHORL, the interior of the WHORL.

  Maliki, the title of the ruler of SINEW'S village, used here as a proper name.

  Mamelta, a sleeper wakened by Mucor and rescued by SILK.

  Mano, a popular young trooper in the horde of BLANKO.

  Maytera Marble, the former sibyl who accompanied the colonists BLUE and resumed her vocation there, a chem.

  Marrow, a magnate of NEW VIRON.

  Maytera Mint, the heroine of VIRON'S revolution, also known as General Mint.

  MORA, a girl in her early teens, INCLITO'S daughter.

  General Morello, the commander of the horde of SOLDO.

  The Mother, a sea-goddess of Blue akin to Scylla.

  Mucor, a woman possessing paranormal powers, Marble's granddaughter.

  Nadar, a madman in SINEW'S village.

  Nadi, a river flowing past Gaon.

  Neighbors, the name by which the sentient native race is known on BLUE'S western continent; the Vanished People.

  Nettle, HORN'S wife, the mother of SINEW, Hoof, and HIDE.

  NEW VIRON, the town on BLUE founded by colonists from VIRON.

  Novella Citta, a smaller town near SOLDO.

  Olivine, a young chem of VIRON, the handicapped daughter of Marble and Hammerstone.

  Olmo, a smaller town near SOLDO.

  Onorifica, the kitchen maid at INCLITO'S.

  OREB, a night chough, INCANTO'S pet bird.

  The OUTSIDER, the god of gods.

  Pajarocu, a phantom town on BLUE'S western continent.

  Pas, the father of the gods of the LONG SUN WHORL.

  Perito, a hired hand on INCLITO'S farm.

  Pig, a friend of INCANTO'S in the LONG SUN WHORL.

  Patera Pike, an elderly augur of Viron, long dead.

  Poliso, a foreign town near BLANKO.

  Councilor Potto, VIRON'S spymaster.

  Qarya, SINEW'S village on GREEN.

  Quadrifons, an aspect of the OUTSIDER in the LONG SUN WHORL.

  Patera Quetzal, the inhumu who became Prolocutor of VIRON, long dead.

  RAJAN, the title of the ruler of Gaon, used here as a proper name.

  Red Sun Whorl, the distant planet on which Rigoglio was born.

  Patera Remora, the head of the Vironese Faith on BLUE.

  Duko Rigoglio, the ruler of SOLDO.

  Rimando, one of the messengers chosen by INCLITO.

  Private Rimo, a trooper in the horde of BLANKO.

  Salica, INCLITO'S elderly mother.

  Sborso, a hired hand on INCLITO'S farm.

  Schiamazza, an elderly servant in Salica's girlhood home.

  Scleroderma, one of the colonists from VIRON, now dead.

  Scylla, a goddess of the LONG SUN WHORL, the patroness of VIRON and a frequent visitor to INCANTO'S dreams (also a sea-monster of the Red Sun Whorl).

  SEAWRACK, the one-armed woman HORN left behind in Pajarocu.

  Captain Sfido, an officer of SOLDO.

  Shauk, a three-year-old boy, SINEW'S son.

  SHORT SUN, the star whose rising begins each new day on BLUE and GREEN; the WHORL is in orbit around it.

  Patera SILK, the calde of Viron at the time the colonists left for BLUE, also called Calde SILK.

  SINEW, the oldest of HORN'S sons, who followed him to Pajarocu.

  Generalissimo Siyuf, the commander of the horde of Trivigaunte.

  SOLDO, the largest of the towns established by colonists from Grandecitta.

  Solenno, one of Salica's unlucky husbands.

  Spider, a spycatcher of VIRON.

  Sun Street Quarter, the district served by SILK'S manteion.

  Colonel Terzo, an officer of SOLDO.

  Thelxiepeia, a goddess of the LONG SUN WHORL.

  Torda, INCLITO'S chambermaid.

  Trivigaunte, the city that intervened in VIRON'S revolution.

  Turco, a favored suitor, long ago.

  Ugolo, a magnate of BLANKO.

  Urbanita, a neighbor of Volanta's.

  Ushujaa, a passenger on the lander that brought HORN to GREEN.

  Sergeant Valico, a trooper in the horde of BLANKO.

  Vanished People, BLUE'S sentient native race; the Neighbors.

  VIRON, the city of the LONG SUN WHORL in which SILK, HORN, and Nettle were born.<
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  Colonel Vivo, an officer in the horde of BLANKO.

  Volanta, INCANTO'S hostess in BLANKO, Atteno's wife.

  Volto, an unpopular trooper in the horde of BLANKO.

  Lieutenant Warren, a mercenary officer.

  Water Street, an avenue in BLANKO bordering the river.

  WHORL, the generation ship from which the colonists came.

  Lieutenant Wight, a mercenary officer.

  Master Xiphias, an elderly fencing master of VIRON.

  Lieutenant Zepter, a mercenary officer.

  Zitta, INCLITO'S wife and MORA'S mother, long dead.

  27th day of the Mobilization

  To my Dear Friend and Councilor Incanto-

  Olmo has fallen. There can be no doubt of it. Our scouts have seen the Duko's pennant at the base camp. I myself saw a dead trooper in purple and maroon not two hours ago. Dragoons of the Bodyguard are here, and the rest close behind. We bear ourselves like men, but you must be braced for the blow.

  I clawed you like a devil for supplies, I know. No more. Take Rimando's mules and muledrivers. Rimando too. They are the only help I can give you.

  Advice: You know I tried to save the northern farms. We shared meat and salt, Incanto. Listen to me. They are finished. Take what you can and leave them to their fate. These graybeards, these women and boys you found arms for, they may fight or make a show of it from the walls. If you march north with them, the Duko's cavalry will cut them to pieces in half an hour. Whatever happens, do not allow them out of the gates. Show the guns on the walls, call a truce, and take the terms Rigoglio offers.

  Write at once if you have word of Mora.

  If I fall, do what you can for my mother. Also, Torda and Onorifica. Shed no tears for your discourteous friend-

  Inclito

  Especially Torda and my mother. I.

  1

  A New Beginning

  I have paper again, and there is still a lot of ink in the little bottle. Besides, the man who owns the shop would give me more ink if I asked for it, I feel certain. Strange how much a quire of writing paper can mean to a man who has made such quantities of it.

  This town is walled. I have never seen a whole town with a wall before. It is not a big wall; I have seen others much higher; but it goes all the way around, except where the river comes in and goes out.

  I do not think this is the same river we had in the south. This one flows fast but silently. Or perhaps it is simply that the noises of the town keep me from hearing the river. Its water is dark. It seems angry.

  Our lazy southern river always smiled, and sometimes laughed aloud, showing a froth of white lace underskirt where it tumbled over rocks. There were crocodiles in it, or at least what we called crocodiles, sleek and shining emerald lizards with eight legs and jaws like traps. They seemed indolent as Nadi herself when they basked on the banks in the sunlight, but their doubly forked blue tongues flicked in and out like flames. I do not think they are really the same as the crocodiles on the Whorl, although it may be that every animal of the kind is entitled to the name, like "bird."

  Which reminds me that I ought to write that Oreb is with me still, perching on my shoulder or the head of my staff, which he likes even better.

  I washed my clothes in this river before we reached the town. I saw a few fish, but no crocodiles of either sort.

  A woodcutter cut my staff for me. I still remember his name, which was Cugino. I don't believe I ever met a better-intentioned man, or found a stranger more friendly. He was the first human being I had seen in days, so I was very glad to see him. I helped him load his donkey, and asked to borrow his axe long enough to cut myself a staff. (I had already tried using the azoth, although I did not tell him so; it shattered the wood to kindling.)

  He would not hear of it. He, Cugino, was the ultimate authority when it came to staffs, and to sticks of every kind. Everybody in the village came to him-and to him alone-whenever they wanted a staff. He would cut me a staff himself. He, personally, would select the wood and trim it in the right way.

  "Everything for you! The wood, how high, where you hold it. Everything! You stand up straight for me."

  He measured me with his eyes, with his hands, and at last with his axe, so that I know now that I am twice the height of Cugino's axe, and an axe-head over.

  "Tall! Tall!" (Although I am not, or at least I am not unusually tall.) He stood with his head to the left, the tip of one big, callused forefinger at the corner of his mouth. I feel certain that my friend in the south never looked a tenth so impressive when he was planning a battle.

  "I got it!" He clapped his hands, the sound of a plank slapped against another.

  We tied his donkey (still loaded, poor beast) and walked some distance into the forest, to a huge tree embraced by a vine thicker than my wrist. Two mighty blows from the axe severed its stem twice, and a third a thick branch at the top of the severed portion.

  "Big vine, " Cugino told me with as much pride as if he had planted it. "Strong like me." He displayed the muscle in his arm, which was indeed impressive. "Not stiff."

  He tore the section that he had cut off the tree (which must have been thanking him with all its heartwood) and tried to snap it over his knee, muscles bulging. "He's a bender, see? He's a unbreakable."

  I ventured that it looked awfully big.

  "I'm not through." His powerful fingers ripped away the corky bark, and in something less than half a minute I had a staff whose right-angled top came to my chin, a staff that was nearly straight and as smooth as glass.

  I still have it. The staff itself belongs to me, but its angled top is Oreb's, who chides me now. "Fish heads? Fish heads?"

  Pointing to the river, I tell him to fish for himself, as I know he can. I would not object to eating, but I can eat after shadelow, assuming that I can find food. This sunlight is nicely slanted for writing, which is to say that the sun is halfway down the sky. Here beside the river, the air is cool and moves not quite enough to be called a breeze. Not enough to stir a sail, in other words, but enough to dry my ink. What could be better?

  Before I forget, I ought to say that what my very good friend Cugino called a vine was what we called a liana on Green. Green is a whorl made for trees, and Green's trees have solved every problem but that one.

  One might almost call it a whorl made by trees, which cover every part of it except the bare rock of its mountaintops and cliffs, and its poles (or whatever the regions of ice should be called). And the trees are working on them.

  In the Whorl, we had the East Pole and the West Pole, pylons with the Long Sun stretched between them. Thus we speak here (and on Green too) of a fictional West Pole to which the Short Sun travels, and an equally fictitious East Pole where it is imagined to originate. From a lander, one sees that none of this is true. There are no such places. Instead of being cylindrical, as we like to think of them, the colored whorls are spherical; and each might be said to have an equally imaginary "pole" at the top and bottom. That is to say that if some scholar were to build models to illustrate them, he would find it necessary to run little axles up through them so that they would turn properly, and if these axles were permitted to protrude at the top as well as at the bottom they would have the appearance of poles to the people whose whorls they held up.

  A man named Inclito sat down next to me while I was writing that last. We fell to talking, as two men will who have nothing better to do than sun themselves like crocodiles of a sunny autumn afternoon, our tongues flicking in our mouths fast enough, if not quite so spectacularly.

  He began our conversation, naturally enough, by asking what I was writing; and I confessed that it was foolishness, which this certainly is.

  "Wisdom, " he corrected me. "You are a wise man. Everyone sees it. Such a wise man would not write foolishness."

  "Would a wise man write at all?" I asked him. To tell the truth, I simply wanted to ask him an inoffensive question to keep him talking, and hit upon that one.

  Without batting
an eye, he returned it to me. "Would one, Master?"

  I had not expected to be addressed in such a fashion, but it seems to be the custom here. At home it usually meant a teacher such as Master Xiphias, the owner of a dog, or the leader of a band of musicians. I said, "A wise man might write, but he wouldn't write as I do. That is to say, he wouldn't record the events of his life. He would consider that they might be read by some innocent person who would laugh himself into fits. A wise man never harms another unless he intends to harm."

  "That is well said." Inclito drew himself up. "I am an old trooper myself."

  I told him respectfully that it was a most honorable occupation, but had never been mine.

  "You have a wound."

  I glanced down, afraid that the wound in my side was bleeding again and staining my robe.

  "There too? I meant your eye." (I must get a rag to wear over that, as Pig did.) Seeing my expression, Inclito continued, "I'm sorry. It's not good to be reminded."

  His own wide, square face is disfigured too, but by some skin disorder. It is not the sort of face that appeals to women; but courage, honesty, strength, and intelligence show in it very plainly. As I sit here waiting for him to take me to dinner, I know very lit tie about him; but from what I saw and heard I think it likely that he is a man who has borne heavy responsibilities for a long time, and has driven himself harder than he drives others.

  We talked for an hour or more, each of us trying to draw the other out. I doubt that there is any point in giving all of that here. I said as little as possible about myself because I did not want him to know what a hash I have made of my task. Inclito was at least as reticent, I would guess because he has a horror of boasting.

  "As long as you're here, " he told me smiling, "you got to think about me when you pass water. Our sewers? They're mine."

  "You designed them?"

  "I made some sketches. We built them, but they didn't work." He chuckled. "So we tore up my sketches and did them over."

  He seems to have been a military officer as well.

  "You walked here." (I had told him that I had.)

  "Where you going to have dinner tonight?"