The Knight

You shall, by my will.

“Who are you?” I said. All of a sudden it seemed to me I did not even know who I was. Was I really just a kid from America? A knight? Bold Berthold’s brother?

I am Kulili. You are the man who has sworn to fight Kulili.

“Able,” I told her. “My name’s ... Able.”

Will you fight me?

“I don’t know.” It did not seem to matter much either way. “I suppose I’ll have to try. I promised.”

So I judge. Your honor is sacred to you.

“You’re a monster. That’s what Garsecg said.” It had been really, really dark up until then, but when I said that there was a green light off in the distance. I thought, what the heck is that?

A luminous fish. They come here sometimes.

“It’s hard to think.” I don’t know why I said that, but it was true. “Why is it so hard to think here?”

My water is cold.

“Why did you bring me here?”

She did not answer.

“Is it okay if I swim back up? I’d like to get warm again.”

Before you kill me? She was laughing at me, but it did not make me mad at all. I kind of liked it.

“You could kill me real easy down here if you wanted to.”

I will not.

“You killed the Aelf when they came to kill you. That’s another thing Garsecg said.”

This world was mine. Mine in a time when there were no Aelf. They drove me from the land into the water, and from the water into these depths. I can be driven no farther. Would you see me?

Like somebody had just dropped it there, there was a clear picture in my mind. It was the statue, only alive.

You looked into the pool. What you saw was yourself, as you are to others. What you see now I am, in the eyes of others.

I could not imagine anybody hating anybody so beautiful. I asked why the Aelf hated her.

Ask them.

“Well, why do you hate them?”

I do not, but I must fear them as long as they fear me.

The beautiful woman was gone. Instead I saw a strange forest. There were trees like phone poles, with a few big leaves at the top. There were pools of water all over, and down where the roots were, something really big was getting bigger and sending out feelers everyplace. The trees talked to this woman under them, and the little plants did too; she answered all of them, one at a time, and was great. She saw them all, and she saw their souls, because each of them was wrapped in a soul like a man would wear a cloak. Their souls were beautiful colors, and no matter what color they were, they sort of glowed.

Insects ate the leaves and spilled their sap, and there were all sorts of animals that would eat the bark and kill the trees. So the woman underneath them made protectors for them, taking little bits of their souls and little pieces of herself, pale gray wisdom that gleamed like pearls. Sticks, leaves, and mud, too, and fire and smoke and water and moss. All sorts of stuff.

At first the protectors were sort of like animals too, but the big woman under the roots looked up into the sky and saw Mythgarthr, and people up there plowing, and planting flowers and tending orchards. So she made the protectors more like them. They were a lot like scarecrows, but they got better and better and got so they could change their shapes to make themselves better yet.

Some still protect, even from me. Do you know them?

I saw Disiri, and it choked me up. I felt like I was going to die if I could not touch her and talk to her, and I said, “Yes. I love her.”

Kulili said, So do I. Then Disiri was gone. Would you see me now? With your eyes of flesh?

I think I said yes.

We waited then. It was not like ten minutes or ten seconds. It was the time they had before somebody built the first clock. I hung there in the cold seawater, turning and waiting, and that was all I did. White, yellow, and green lights went around and around me, and hay-colored lights, and sky-colored.

Our lamp.

They came together, and I saw they were really fish. There were little orange fish that glowed like the flames of candles, black fish with huge heads and bad-dream teeth that hung red and blue bait in front of their own mouths, long silvery fish with gills and tails like light bulbs, and big blue fish with rows of blue lights down their sides, and a lot more kinds that I forget. All sorts of reds and yellows and pinks and every kind of color.

Only they were not important. What was important was down under them, and it was white thread, a big, big tangle of white thread, all of it alive and sort of groping. When I first saw it I thought it did not have any shape, but as soon as I thought that, it did. There was a mouth that could have swallowed the Western Trader, and a nose like a hill. Only it was a beautiful nose and a beautiful mouth, too. Pretty soon there were eyes, white eyes that looked blind. They blinked, and they had pupils I could have dived into, and they were blue eyes, and there was color in the cheeks just like roses were blooming there. It was the woman the statue had been made like. Only the statue is usually bigger than the person. Way down in the dark seawater was the real person, and she could have worn the statue around her neck on a chain.

Will you kill me? Still?

In the first place, I did not want to. In the second place, I did not think I could. I said, “I’ll have to try, Kulili. I’ll have to try my best, because I promised I would. But I hope you get away. I hope I won’t be able to do it.”

Now?

“No. These fish of yours could kill me pretty easy, and I haven’t even got a sword.”

May it be long before we meet again.

Chapter 28. Three Years

It was a long swim to the surface. It is fu