The Ships of Aleph Read Online Free PDF

that made me discount my earlier brief experiences of sex. Outside of our bed, she was always happy to talk about her life on the Coast of Shoals, and beyond in the company of her captors. She told me of the shallow coral seas with their low islands and the great whirlpools off the headlands of some of the bays. For my part, I taught her to read. She showed little enthusiasm at first, then took to it with a surprising aptitude. She remained shy around the angel, while it generally ignored her. It visited with the same regularity, once every ten days, but our conversations tended to be shorter now that I was spending more time living life rather than analysing it.
     
    ***
     
    All through that summer and autumn, we were happy.
    The first cracks appeared after we argued about the wine. Merel wanted to brew with some of this year’s crop of berries. I have no taste for drink, and I felt it was not something we needed. In the end I conceded to please her.
    Our argument, though not long or fractious, got me thinking about the future. Would we always want to live together? If not, what then? The angel’s offer to return me to the world still stood, but how about Merel? As far as I knew it had never spoken to her directly. If I tired of her, or she of me, what would it do?
    Such questions never concerned her, an attitude I initially envied but which came to trouble me. The first flush of love was past and I began to return to my old routines and regain some of my objectivity. As I gave the matter more thought a terrible, unthinkable possibility started to dawn on me. I found myself considering questions I dared not voice, either to her or to the angel. Small things at first: why had my research never uncovered the herb she said the raiders had given her? Why had she taken to reading so quickly? Why would one as misused as she be so eager to press herself upon a man? Even the way she’d recognised the bath when she first came to me: I only knew of such things from my reading, and had asked for it when I found no sea or river to bathe in; she, like me, came from a coastal village, and was unlikely to have encountered such an object.
    Yet I loved her, and loved our nights of pleasure and our days of contentment. So I hid my fears, even from myself.
    In the end it was the wine that did it. We drank the first batch at midwinter. The young, fruity brew went straight to my head and I became playful and silly, though in the back of my mind I was annoyed at myself for such frivolity. She seemed as intoxicated as I. But I had a growing conviction that she was not actually drunk, that she was playing with me. Pretending. We rowed about nothing, then made up in the usual way. But afterwards I found myself unable to sleep and, still mildly intoxicated, went downstairs and waited for the angel’s nightly visit.
    It paused on the threshold when it saw me sitting at the table.
    ‘Is something wrong, Lachin?’ it asked.
    The drink made me speak harshly when I asked, ‘Is she real?’
    The angel never played games but neither would it hazard guesses when my meaning was unclear. ‘That would depend on your definition of real,’ it said.
    ‘Is she a person, an actual person? Is what she told me true, or just a story?’
    The angel said nothing.
    When I heard a step on the stair I stood up and turned around. It was too dark to see Merel’s face, but her voice was the same voice that had whispered endearments in the night, that had laughed with me, that had declared its love. ‘You once asked one of us if it was the same as your usual visitor, and it said we are all the same. That is not entirely true. We can take any form.’
    ‘No.’ The word dropped from me like a stone.
    ‘Yes. I am sorry, Lachin.’
    ‘You’re sorry? There is no you ! You’re just ... there’s just ...’ speech left me.
    She – it – knew better than to approach. Instead it simply said ‘Goodbye,’ then walked out, followed by the more obvious construct.
    I