Willowspear spread his slender hands in a shrug. “My lord assumed you would think of a way. You people are so clever, after all,” he added, with only the faintest trace of sarcasm.
Smith spun the wheel, edging the Kingfisher’s Nest around a dead snag. “Funny how everyone thinks we’re the worst people in the world, until they need something done. Then we’re the wonderful clever people with ideas.”
Willowspear sighed.
“You mustn’t take it personally.”
“All I know is, if you put a naked Yendri and a naked Child of the Sun down in a wilderness, with nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep, the Yendri would sit there and do nothing for fear of stepping on a blade of grass. The Child of the Sun would figure out how to make himself clothes and tools and shelter and—in ten generations the Child of the Sun would have cities and trade goods and—and culture, dammit, while the Yendri would still be sitting there scared to move,” said Smith.
“If I were going to argue with you, I would point out that in ten more generations the Child of the Sun would have wars, famine, and plague, and the Yendri would still be there. And in ten more generations the Child of the Sun would be dead, leaving a wrecked place where no blade of grass grew; and the Yendri would still be there,” said Willowspear. “So who is wiser, Smith?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Lord Ermenwyr, climbing up on deck. Stabb followed him. “But the only way anyone would ever win this stupid experiment would be to make the naked Yendri and the naked Child of the Sun of opposite sexes. Then they’d think of something much more interesting to do. What’s that noise up ahead, Smith?”
“You’ll see in a minute,” said Smith. They came around a long bar of mud alive with basking water snakes, yellow as coiled brass, and beheld the Pool of Reth.
It opened four acres of forest to the sun, and the water was clear as green glass endlessly rippling, save at the edge where the Rethestlin thundered down in its white torrent from the cliff, along a wide shelf the height of a house. Green ferns taller than a man leaned from the bank, feeding on the air that was wet with rainbows. Tiny things, birds maybe, flitted across in the sunlight, and now and then one of them would make an apparently suicidal plunge into the cascade.
Willowspear pointed silently. On the bank to one side was an open meadow, and two tall stones stood there, carved with signs as the three at Hlinjerith had been carved. The same flowers had been planted about their bases, but in this more sheltered place had grown to great size. Rose brambles were thick as Willowspear’s arm, poppy blooms the size of dishes, and the standing stones seemed smaller by comparison. A trail led from them to the base of the cliff, where it switchbacked up broadly, an easy climb.
“Here the Star-Cloaked faltered,” said Willowspear. He drew a deep breath and sang: ” ‘Leading the unchained-lost-amazed, holding the Child, the blood of his body in every step he took; this was the first place his strength failed him, and he fell from the top of the cliff. The Child fell with him. The people came swift down running lamenting, and found Her floating, for the river would not drown the Blessed-Miraculous-Beloved; and in Her fist She held the edge of his starry cloak, as in Her hand She now holds the heavens and all that is in them.
“‘And so he was brought into the air, the Imperfect Beloved, and the people wept for him; but the Child pulled his hair, and he opened his eyes and lived. And he was stunned-silent-forgetful a long while, but when he spoke again it was to praise Her. And the people praised Her. In this place, they first knew She was the Mother of Strength and Mercy, and they knelt and praised Her.’”
Lord Ermenwyr grimaced, and in a perfectly ordinary voice said, “So, Smith, how do we get up the falls?”
“Oh, that’ll be easy,” said Smith, guiding the Kingfisher’s Nest into the Pool. “You just arrange to have a team of engineers brought in, with a small army and heavy equipment. We could work out a system of locks and dams that’d get us up to the top in ten minutes. Shouldn’t take more than a couple