Denner's Wreck

Chapter Nine

“…He looked up from where he lay, and saw a man dressed in black, with a strange black hat upon his head and a raven on his shoulder, standing at the edge of the clearing."

"Of course, he knew immediately that this was Rawl the Adjuster. He struggled to sit up, but he could not. It took all his strength to call, ‘Hello! Can you help me?'

"Rawl heard him and paused. He looked the situation over for a moment, then came and sat beside the storyteller. ‘What do you need?’ he asked.

"And the storyteller explained how he had counted the Powers, and that although he had always been told that there are twenty-eight Powers in the world, yet when he thought through every tale he knew, every legend, every little incident, and noted down each and every mention, however trivial or obscure, he came up with a list of only twenty-seven names. He told the Adjuster how this had troubled him, and how he had gone seeking through the world, to see if anyone could tell him who the twenty-eighth Power is. He told how he wandered on, ever more despairing as first wakes, then seasons, and finally whole years went by without an answer, until at last he had found himself in his present sorry state.

"'Is that all?’ Rawl asked. ‘All you want is to know the names of all twenty-eight immortals?'

"'Yes,’ the storyteller replied. ‘That's all. Tell me the twenty-eighth name, and I shall die content.'

"'There's no need for you to die at all,’ Rawl told him, ‘for I can easily heal your wounds and send you back to your village sound and well.'

"'I would rather know the name,’ the storyteller said.

"'I'll tell you that, too,’ Rawl answered. ‘I suppose that it would be Shadowdark.'

"'Shadowdark?’ the storyteller asked.

"'Yes, Shadowdark. He is the oldest of us all, and the most reclusive. He speaks to no one, either mortal or immortal. He lives simply, in the forest not too far from here, and if you did not know who he was you would have no reason to think him anything but a very tall and ugly mortal man-very tall and very ugly.'

"'You say he is near here?’ the storyteller asked.

"'Yes,’ Rawl replied, ‘but you dare not seek him out. If you saw him and thought him mortal, it would be of no matter, but if you saw him and knew him for what he is, you would die instantly…"

– from the tales of Kithen the Storyteller

“Sir, I'm afraid that you must rephrase your question if you want a coherent answer. Shadowdark is a Power, as you use the term, but I cannot tell you who he is without further specification."

After a moment's consideration Bredon accepted that. Not all Powers had neat, clearly-defined roles like the Lady of the Seasons. He tried to choose his next question carefully, making it specific enough for the familiar spirit, or whatever it was, to answer, but general enough to give him as much information as possible in its implications. “Why does he speak a strange language?” he asked. “And why does Geste call him ‘sir'?"

“I assume, sir, that Shadowdark speaks Alphan English because he feels most comfortable with that language, and that Mr. Geste addresses him as ‘sir’ because of the great difference in their ages and because Shadowdark has held much higher social status and rank in times past than Mr. Geste has ever achieved."

This answer brought a flood of new questions to mind; Bredon suppressed all but one.

“How can one Power be older than another? I thought they were all immortals, created at the beginning of time."

“No, sir, I'm afraid you have misunderstood the situation. The people you call the Powers are effectively immortal, yes, but they were not created at the beginning of time. They were born over a period of several thousand years. The person who now uses the name Shadowdark was the first, and is now approximately seven thousand years old. I use an approximation because years differ in length on different worlds, but are close enough on most of the worlds Shadowdark has lived on to make such approximations possible. Thaddeus the Black is the second-oldest of Shadowdark's surviving children, and the oldest of those children currently on Denner's Wreck. These two are more than two thousand years older than any of the other Powers. Mr. Geste was born almost six thousand years after Shadowdark. He is the second-youngest of the Powers, followed only by Imp."

Bredon struggled with this for a moment.

“You said Shadowdark had lived in other worlds?” he asked. “And had a higher rank than Geste? I don't understand that. I thought that the Powers were the Powers, and had always been what they are now."

“No, sir,” the floater replied with inhuman patience and calm. “The people you call the Powers came to this world, which you call simply ‘the world’ but which they know by the ancient catalogue name ‘Denner's Wreck,’ four hundred and sixty-two years ago. Prior to that they had lived on a variety of other worlds before gathering on Terra and choosing to investigate the lost colony on Denner's Wreck. As for Shadowdark's rank, at one time he was an emperor, absolute master of more than twenty worlds, before he grew bored with power and abdicated. Mr. Geste has never held any rank or office higher than his current position as freeholder."

Bredon was growing ever more confused. The floater's explanations were clear enough, but simply did not fit with what he thought he knew about the universe or the Powers. An emperor ruling twenty worlds? The universe as he understood it only held three inhabited worlds-the one in the sky whence mankind had come, the one he lived in now, and the one the Powers had come from, where the gods ruled and where his soul would go when he died, to either serve the gods or to be fed to the demons in the wilderness called Hell.

“I don't understand,” he admitted.

The floater was silent for a moment; Bredon glanced out the window in the surrounding bubble of darkness and saw only more darkness. He could only distinguish the window from the rest of the bubble by the presence of stars in the sky beyond.

Geste, almost invisible in the gloom, was still sunk in thought.

“I am afraid,” the floater said at last, “that explaining the situation will take a considerable length of time. Your ignorance of history and cosmology presents a significant barrier to comprehension of the present situation."

Bredon asked, “What did you say?"

“I said you don't know enough to understand my explanations,” the floater explained.

“Oh.” Bredon started to protest, to defend himself, then stopped. The thing was probably right, he realized. He was not stupid, but he was very ignorant indeed.

He didn't even know what he was talking to. Was it a familiar spirit? He didn't know.

He wanted to know, though. He wanted it very much.

This entire journey had been a flood of new experiences and new ideas, and Bredon found it exciting and invigorating, so much so that he had already forgotten his resentment of Geste, and had come close, at times, to forgetting that he was here in pursuit of Lady Sunlight, and not for the sake of the adventure itself. He wanted more. He wanted to understand what the thing was talking about. He wanted to understand who and what the Powers were, and what they were doing.

He had always liked learning, even as a very young child. He had spoken early, and had asked more questions than the other children. His heritage as a hunter had been a good one in regard to his love of knowledge; he had been not merely permitted, but required, to learn the habits of the various creatures that roamed the grasslands, to learn the patterns of the weather, to learn to read an animal's trail. He had been able to study the animals he hunted-not merely their behavior when pursued, but every aspect of their behavior, their anatomy, their environment. He had been free to roam the countryside, to explore more or less wherever he chose, and he had pitied those people who stayed always in the village. He had thought that he knew his world well.

Now he was discovering that he knew almost nothing, and he wanted to learn more. He did not want to go quietly back to his village and wait there while Geste rescued Lady Sunlight for him.

“You know, you don't really need to take me home,” he said. “I don't mind coming along while you… while you do whatever you're going to do."

“Who's taking you home?” Geste asked, startled out of his reverie. “I never said I was taking you home."

“But… but you told the platform to take me home!” Bredon blurted.

“I said take us home. I meant my home,” Geste replied coldly.

Bredon hesitated, confused, but unsure asking the obvious question would be wise.

Every story he had ever heard about Geste the Trickster had emphasized that Geste was a wanderer, that he roved about wherever he pleased. Other Powers had their holds, their places of power, but a few carried all the power they had with them-Rawl the Adjuster and Geste the Trickster were the two wanderers Bredon knew of.

He could not restrain his curiosity.

“What home?” he asked. “I thought you didn't have one."

Geste smiled, for the first time since the drone had attacked the platform.

“Ah,” he said smugly.

Bredon waited, but the Trickster did not continue.

“What home?” Bredon repeated.

Geste smiled, and gestured mysteriously with an upraised finger. “You'll see!” he said.

Bredon felt himself growing angry, but before he could say anything more Geste gave in and continued.

“It's true,” he said, still smiling cheerfully, “that I don't stay home much, and that I don't let anyone else in, as a rule. I don't suppose my home gets into the stories you people tell about us. It may well be that even some of the other Powers, as you call us, don't know it exists, since I've never held a party there, never had more than one or two guests. It's real enough, though, and you'll be the first mortal to see it in, oh, two or three hundred years."

Mollified, Bredon relaxed, and tried to think of more questions to ask.

They stood on the platform, surrounded by darkness, and Bredon knew that the world was rushing by them, but he could neither see nor feel any movement.

“How will you know when we're there?” he asked.

Geste shrugged. “I'll know."

Bredon could think of no polite way to pry further into that subject, so he switched to another that had been preying on him. “Do you really think Lady Sunlight is trapped in that place, that castle we saw?"

“Probably.” Geste's smile faded. “If she's not, if she's faked all this somehow, then she's managed a stunt that makes any of mine look trivial.” His expression turned thoughtful. “I wonder… I wonder, could she have put all this together? Got them all into a little conspiracy to get back at me?"

He hesitated, considering, then said, “No. She could never get Thaddeus to help. And Brenner wouldn't let them shoot up the High Castle for a joke, and that attack on us seemed pretty serious. Besides, if it were a set-up, they couldn't know when I'd come across it. I only tried to find Sunlight to help you; I might have gone years without checking on her whereabouts otherwise, so you'd need to be in on it, and I can't imagine Sunlight finding you and recruiting you into something like that."

Bredon agreed, “Nobody recruited me for anything. I don't know what's going on at all."

“Oh, it's simple enough, really. We Powers squabble amongst ourselves all the time, but nothing much comes of it; we all have so many machines and devices protecting us that it would take a real effort to do each other any harm. But now it looks as if one fight has turned nasty, and Thaddeus is making that effort against Brenner, and Sheila and Sunlight and the others got caught in the middle."

Bredon thought he glimpsed something in Geste's expression, something that indicated that the Trickster did not believe his own explanation, that he was worried, as if he thought something else, something more, was involved. Bredon could not imagine what else could be involved, but he could not find the nerve to ask directly, to admit he did not believe Geste. Instead, he poked around the edges of the subject.

“Do you think Lady Sunlight may be hurt?"

“She could be,” Geste admitted.

“Is it my fault? Would she have gotten involved if I hadn't tried to get into the Meadows?"

Geste glanced at him, then looked away again. “Oh, I wouldn't worry about that,” he said. “I doubt she paid any attention to you at all."

Bredon hardly found that flattering, but he let it slide as he pressed his inquiry.

“Could she be killed?” he asked. “Can a Power die?"

Geste laughed bitterly, then said, “Oh, we can die, all right, but it takes a lot to kill one of us. There isn't much on Denner's Wreck that could kill a Power except another Power, and even then it isn't easy."

“Do you think Thaddeus the Black might kill Lady Sunlight?"

Geste glanced at him again, his face unusually serious. “Not intentionally,” he answered. “Are you hungry?"

The abrupt change of subject caught Bredon by surprise. “Yes,” he said, realizing suddenly that he was indeed very hungry.

“Good; so am I,” Geste said. “Worrying always gives me an appetite. We'll be at my hold in a minute, but I'd rather not wait.” He reached out and began pulling foil packets and glittering crystal vials from the air and handing them to Bredon.

When Bredon's arms were full Geste settled down cross-legged on the platform. Bredon followed his example; they sat facing each other as they peeled open packets and popped the lids from vials, and both ate and drank heartily of Geste's strange and wonderful viands.