Читать книгу The Secrets of Names. Snow Chronicles. Book 1 - Ар'лан ис'Дрекхэм - Страница 8

«Help!» Vera shouted.

This time it came out properly human.

Her voice spread through the air in bright rings, the way ripples spread on water when you throw in a stone. Only here the water was snow, and the stone was panic.

«Help!» she shouted again. «Anybody! I’m stuck here! And for the record, this is not a metaphor!»

Nobody answered.

Far away, towers shimmered silver. Over the low hills darted things of light – bright creatures rather like birds, or else thoughts in a desperate hurry to be somewhere else. But near Vera there was nothing.

She had already drawn breath for a third call – possibly the most dramatic of her life – when a voice directly above her said,

«She’s making a noise.»

Another voice replied,

«She is not making a noise. She is declaring distress. That is different.»

Vera craned her head back.

Two creatures were hanging above her.

They were not large. They were not frightening.

But they were so very peculiar that for the first three seconds all one wanted to do was blink and wait for the world to correct itself.

The first was long and fine and softly lit from within, as if it had been made from morning frost and one careful breath. Its outline kept shifting a little, growing sharper and then blurring again, like a sketch on misted glass. Its eyes – if they were eyes – were dark and round and mildly astonished.

The second was brighter, sharper, and altogether more angular. Sparks kept racing over its golden-orange body, as if it did not stand or hover or even exist in peace, but was perpetually having a mild disagreement with its own edges. It wore the expression of a being who had managed in a single day to become involved in five conversations, three quarrels, and one misunderstanding, and saw no reason to stop there.

«Who are you?» Vera asked.

«She asks!» cried the bright one, delighted. «That means she’s thinking. Good sign. Or bad. I haven’t decided.»

«Answer first,» said the pale one gently. Then it turned to Vera. «We are Yin and Yang.»

«I’m Yang,» said the golden one at once. «And that’s Yin. She thinks slowly, but much too much.»

«And Yang thinks quickly,» said Yin, «which means not always with the appropriate part of himself.»

«Splendid,» said Vera. «Delighted to meet you. I’m Vera. Now perhaps one of you could explain why I appear to be an unfinished snow accident?»

Both of them bent lower.

Yang flew a quick circle round her.

«Because you haven’t finished assembling.»

«What a remarkably helpful observation.»

«I do what I can.»

Yin settled herself in the air – if one can settle oneself without possessing a chair, a floor, or apparently any very fixed ideas about anatomy.

«You fell fresh,» she said. «New arrivals always come apart. Especially if they fall for a long time and think too much on the way down.»

«And if they don’t think?»

«Then they fall faster,» said Yang brightly. «But get lost more often. You’re doing rather well for a puddle, actually.»

«Thank you,» said Vera through her teeth. «I have always longed to hear that.»

Yang peered at her.

«She’s sarcastic.»

«Then she is certainly alive,» said Yin with a nod.

This was said so matter-of-factly that Vera did not at once have time to be offended.

«Of course I’m alive!»

«That,» said Yang, «is rather a philosophical question. A great many things here are alive while they are remembered. And some are extremely lively whenever anyone is looking at them.»

«Where is here?» Vera asked quickly. «What is this place? Why did I fall as snow? Why didn’t I have any legs? Why is everything glowing? Why are you like this?»

«That,» said Yin, «is several questions.»

«I like them that way,» said Yang. «Only just arrived and already wants the whole structure of the universe in three sentences, preferably before lunch.»

«We do not have lunch,» Yin reminded him.

«That explains why everyone’s so highly strung.»

Vera stared at them.

«Could you answer like human beings?»

«We could,» said Yang. «Sometimes we choose not to.»

Yin gave a small sigh, with the air of someone accustomed, and likely to remain accustomed, to another person’s restlessness.

«This is the Snow World of Meanings,» she said. «Everything that has ever been named, thought, spoken, or felt leaves a trace here. It gathers. It falls as snow. It settles in layers. And it becomes part of the world.»

Vera was silent.

The words were simple enough. But inside them was something far too large.

She looked round again.

Now that the fright had drawn back a little, the world did indeed look like that – a place made not of stone and wood, but of something finer and tougher. Memory. Thought. Speech. All the things people insist are invisible until they begin disappearing.

«Why snow?» she asked.

«Because falling out of your world is the most honest way to arrive,» said Yin.

«And because it’s prettier,» added Yang. «Worlds do like dressing up, you know.»

«Fresh snow falls from above,» Yin went on. «Light, bright, newly made. Old snow sinks lower. There it grows denser, heavier, quieter.»

«At the top everything is quick,» said Yang. «Noisy, shining, forever changing. Cities flare up and alter so often that nobody ever quite gets used to them. Deeper down, things slow. They grow older. More stubborn.»

«Like school and a library?» said Vera, not quite sure why that was what came into her head.

«A little,» said Yin. «Though not exactly. Nothing here copies your world directly. It is your world reflected in dream. Or in water. Or in the memory of someone who loved it very much and got some of it wrong.»

Vera looked into the distance.

Now she could see that one cluster of towers was pale and airy, all swift bridges and bright lines. In another place there were darker hills, calmer somehow, as if the snow there had lain a very long time and become serious. And farther still something glimmered so faintly that it looked either like a city or the memory of one.

«And who lives here?» she asked.

«Oh, all sorts,» said Yang, brightening at once. «Simple ones. Complicated ones. Old ones. New ones. Things said a thousand times. Things remembered by only two people, but properly. Things born yesterday. Things almost forgotten. Things that had no business existing at all, but made a determined effort.»

«We are simples,» Yin explained. «The smallest stable kind. We gather. We join. We help hold shape together, provided the shape is not too wilful.»

«And you,» said Yang, poking a glowing finger in Vera’s direction, «are currently an extremely wilful shape.»

«I had no legs.»

«That does tend to sour the temper.»

Vera gave an unwilling snort.

And instantly took advantage of it.

«Then put me together.»

Yin and Yang exchanged a glance.

«Just like that?» said Yang.

«What, do you take bookings on Thursdays?»

«As a matter of fact,» said Yang, «we are under no obligation – »

«But we can,» said Yin gently.

«But we are under no obligation,» he repeated.

«But we can.»

«But – »

Yin merely looked at him.

Yang subsided. He hovered there radiating the expression of someone to whom the worst injustice in history had just been done.

«All right,» he muttered. «We’ll put her together. But if she turns out to have a dreadful character, that’s on you.»

«I already have a dreadful character,» said Vera. «I manage it quite well.»

«I like her,» said Yang unexpectedly.

«Don’t get attached,» said Vera.

Yin stretched out her hands.

From her fingers came thin pale threads – not ropes, not beams, but something between movement and intention. They touched the snowy light at Vera’s sides, gathered it, and drew it upward. Yang joined in at once. His threads were brighter and sharper and worked with the brisk competence of someone catching a falling saucepan – not because it is elegant, but because if no one does, there will be a mess.

Vera felt something forming beneath her.

At first vaguely.

Then unmistakably.

Knees. Calves. Feet.

It was not painful. It was simply unpleasant. As if her legs were having to remember they were legs after a long and unsuccessful attempt at being weather.

«Ow,» said Vera.

«Excellent sign,» said Yang. «The material is returning to a healthy disagreeableness.»

«Gently,» said Yin. «She is not fully fastened yet.»

«I can hear you,» Vera informed them.

«That also is a good sign,» said Yang.

A little later – or what may locally have been half a year – Vera was standing. Not very steadily. Somewhat glowy. But definitely standing.

It felt so marvellous that she immediately wanted to run somewhere at once while asking at least ten more questions as she went.

She settled for exactly ten.

«So if somebody is forgotten, they disappear?»

«Not at once,» said Yin.

«First they fade,» said Yang. «Then weaken. Then sink lower. Or come apart. Or become a shadow of themselves.»

«And if they’re remembered?»

«Then they hold,» said Yin. «Sometimes very strongly. Stronger than you would expect.»

«Is a name really that important?» Vera asked.

This time both of them answered together.

«Yes.»

Then Yin said, «A name is what gathers you into one thing. Here, without a name, it is difficult to stay whole. You may be bright, strong, ancient – but once the name begins to go, the shape starts quarrelling with itself.»

«And a shape quarrelling with itself is never attractive,» Yang added. «Sometimes it is even explosive.»

«And you?» Vera asked. «Are you made of names too?»

«We are simples,» said Yin. «We are named by what we do. That is enough for us.»

«I should prefer something grander,» said Yang. «Lord of Brilliant Decisions, for instance.»

«You cannot make decisions,» Yin pointed out.

«That is why it sounds grand. Nobody would suspect a thing.»

Vera laughed.

And while she laughed, she felt the world around her again: shining, deep, strange, unlike anything she had ever seen and yet horribly familiar too.

The Snow World breathed round her in quiet coloured light. Far off, cities shimmered. Above one hill a long creature drifted by like a ribbon of brightness. The sunless sky glittered as if every star had decided to come and see for itself.

And everything might almost have been wonderful, if Vera had not suddenly remembered the most important thing.

«Wait,» she said. «How do I get home?»

Yin and Yang looked at one another.

And Vera immediately disliked how long they were silent.

They had the look of beings who know the answer perfectly well and would much rather not be the ones to spoil matters with it.

«What?» said Vera quickly. «Why are you being silent in that dreadful way?»

«We are not being dreadfully silent,» said Yang, offended. «We are making a meaningful pause.»

«That is almost always a bad sign,» said Vera.

«Not always,» Yin said gently. «Sometimes a pause is necessary in order not to say all the most unpleasant things at once.»

«Wonderful,» said Vera. «That is extremely reassuring.»