Exodus from the Long Sun tbotls-4

by Gene Wolfe

  Spider nodded. “Right.”

  “Then I should think that the soldier was in the latrine. Since chems don’t use them, he might have thought Guan wouldn’t expect him there.”

  Spider said nothing, sitting with eyes half shut, his back against the shiprock wall.

  “Here is my second question. You’ll recall that Councillor Potto described the situation on the surface to His Eminence and me, then asked who was master of the city. His description made it clear that he was implying the Rani was. I take it you will concede that. You were present.”

  “Sure. When her troopers come out of her airship, some of yours took shots at them. You know that?”

  “I do. Many died as a result of that tragic error.”

  “Those troopers thought Viron was bein’ invaded, and they were right. Sure, the Trivigauntis are goin’ to help you fight us. Sure, they’re goin’ to make this Silk calde. But he’ll lose his job the first time he balks. What’s the question?”

  “You’ve answered it already, at least in part. I planned to ask what you know of the plans of the Trivigauntis.”

  Remora cleared his throat. “I am — ah — readied. Also resolved. You yourselves, eh? Are you, um…?”

  “Go ahead,” Spider told him.

  Remora took two determined steps to his right and threw wide the door.

  “That’s the latrine, you putt!”

  Calmly, Remora turned. “I am, ah, was aware of it. I, um, eavesdropped, eh? Couldn’t help it. The General, um, indicated that this, ah, necessary room would be the point of greatest, er, greater hazard. I revere her intellect. More than your own, if I may be thus — ah — incivil.”

  “Usually I do better than this,” Spider told him. “Now get in there where you’re s’posed to, and don’t forget to bring me out a bottle.”

  “You would — ah — indubitably have had me, um, risk the necessary room as well.” Remora opened the storeroom door as he spoke. “I therefore, eh? Advised by the immortal gods. Or so I would like to, um, have it. The greater risk first.”

  He stepped into the storeroom. “As for, ah, this…” He clapped to brighten the single dull light on the ceiling. “It is equally, um, innocent? Unpeopled.”

  “In that case, I would like another bottle of water, Your Eminence,” Maytera Mint declared firmly, “if it’s not too much trouble. And some bread, if there is any. Meat, too. I would be very grateful.” To Spider she continued, “I inquired about what you knew, you’ll notice, not what you guessed. Do you know this? Or is it speculation?”

  “I know it. Now you’ll want to know how I know.”

  She shook her head, marveling to find herself — little Maytera Mint from Sun Street! — haggling with such a man over such a matter. “I won’t require you to reveal your sources.”

  “I’ll tell you anyhow. Councillor Potto told me before we went up there. He wasn’t just guessin’, neither.”

  Remora emerged from the storeroom with a dusty wine bottle, two even dustier bottles of water, and several small packages wrapped in tinted synthetic.

  Spider accepted the wine. “Brown’s bread and red’s meat. I ought to of told you, but I guess you worked it out yourself.”

  “It was not — ah — cryptic.” Remora sat down. “This, er, packet is unopened, Maytera. I, hum, sampled the other. Somewhat saline, but tasty.”

  She accepted a red package and unwrapped it eagerly; it held flat strips of what seemed to be dried beef. “We thank all gods for this good food,” she murmured. “Thanks to Fair Phaea, especially. Praise Pasturing Pas for fat cattle.” She tore the leathery meat with her teeth and thought it sweet as sugarcane.

  “Councillor Potto can lie birds out of a tree,” Spider drew the cork of the wine bottle with a pop. “I’ve heard him to where I just about believed him myself. You said while we were talkin’ in the tunnel that you figured I could fool you if I wanted to. I’m not so sure, but Councillor Potto could put it over on me, and I know it. Only this wasn’t that. He just said it, listenin’ to himself. I don’t think he cared a sham shaggy bit whether I believed it. But I do, and I’ve known him twenty years, like I said.”

  Maytera Mint nodded and swallowed. “Thank you. And thank you, Your Eminence, for this food. I thanked the gods, I fear, but not their proximal agent.”

  “Quite all right, eh? Um — delighted. Have some bread.” Remora handed her a brown-wrapped package. “Strengthening. Ah — fortifying.”

  “Thank you again. Thank you very much. All praise to Fruiting Echidna, whose sword I am.”

  She paused as she tore the loaf. “Spider, I’ll ask my final question, if I may. I won’t be able to, with my mouth full of this good bread. You may not know the answer.”

  “If I don’t know, I don’t.” He wiped the top of the wine bottle on his cuff and held it out to her. “You want to bless this, too, while you’re doin’ everythin’ else?”

  “Certainly.” Maytera Mint laid the bread in her lap with the remainder of the dried beef and traced the sign of addition over the bottle. “Praise to you, Exhilarating Thelxiepeia, and praise to you, likewise, dark son of Thyone.”

  “Want a drink? Help yourself.”

  She sipped cautiously, then more boldly.

  “I bet that was the first wine you ever had in your life. Am I right?”

  She shook her head. “Laymen — they are men in fact, very largely — give us a bottle now and then. When it happens, we have a glass at dinner until it’s gone.” She hesitated. “We did, I should have said. Maytera Rose and I did, but we won’t any more. She passed away last Tarsday, and I’ve scarcely had a moment to mourn her. She was…”

  “A, umph, excellent sibyl,” Remora put in. He chewed and swallowed. “Doubtless. I did not have the — ah — happiness of her acquaintance. But doubtless, eh? No doubt of it.”

  “A good woman whom life had treated sufficiently roughly that she struck out, at times, before she was struck.” Maytera Mint finished pensively. “Toward the end she struck at others habitually, I would say. It could be unpleasant, and yet her asperity was fundamentally defensive. That’s good wine. Might I have a little more, Spider?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Thank you.” She sipped again. “Perhaps His Eminence would like some too.”

  “Dimber with me.”

  Maytera Mint wiped the mouth of the bottle and passed it to Remora. “My third question now. As I said, you may not know the answer. But what was the original purpose of these tunnels? I’ve been wondering ever since our calde described them to me, and it may be important.”

  Spider leaned back, his homely heavy-featured face tilted upward and his eyes closed. “That’s somethin’ I can tell you all right, but I got to think.”

  “As I say—”

  He leaned forward once more, his eyes open and one large hand tugging at his stubbled jaw. “I didn’t say I don’t know. Councillor Potto told me about them. One thing he said was it wasn’t just one thing. There’s three or maybe four, and they go under the whole whorl. You know that?”

  Her mouth full, Maytera Mint shook her head.

  “If you went along the big one we turned off of,” Spider jerked his thumb at the door, “far enough, you could get clean to the skylands, maybe. I don’t know anybody that ever tried it, but that’s what Councillor Potto said one time. You can be way out in the sticks where there isn’t any houses or anythin’, nothin’ but trees and bushes, and maybe there’s one right under you. Could be a hundred cubits down or so close you’d hit it puttin’ in a fence post.”

  Hoping her face did not betray the skepticism she felt, she said, “The labor involved must have been incredible.”

  “Pas built them. It’s queer, tellin’ you two that. You ought to tell me. But he did. He did it when he was buildin’ the whorl, so it wasn’t as bad as you’d figure.”

  The wine returned to Spider, who drank and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “His boys did the real work, accordin’ to the counci
llor. When we say Pas made it, it just means he had the idea and ran the job.”

  “His divine — ah — puissance animated his servants.”

  “If you say so. But there was a lot, see? He wanted the job done fast. Mind if I have a little of that?”

  Spider took two strips of dried meat from Maytera Mint’s lap. “I’m with him there, I’m the same way. You got a job to do, you do it. Wrap it up and tie the string. Let one drag, and somethin’ always goes queer.” He bit through both strips.

  “If they were indeed constructed by Pas, it must have been for some good reason. It’s one of the paradoxes of isagogics—” Maytera Mint looked to Remora for permission to speak on learned and holy topics, and received it. “That Pas, with all power at his disposal, squanders none. He never acts without a purpose, and educes a multitude of benefits from a single action.”

  She paused, inviting contradiction. “We sibyls don’t go to the schola, but we receive some education as postulants, and we read, of course. We can also question our augurs if we wish, though I confess I’ve seldom done so.”

  “All — ah — admirably correct, Maytera. General.”

  Spider nodded. “Councillor Potto said somethin’ like that about the tunnels. We were talkin’ about when they got built.”

  “I’d like to hear it.”

  “It was while they were buildin’ the whorl, like I said. To start it was just a big hunk of rock. You know that?”

  “Certainly. The Chrasmologic Writings emphasize it.”

  “So how could they get in and get the rock out? They dug a bunch of tunnels. Then they had to haul in dirt and trees, and pretty soon a big cart would come out and it’d be tearin’ up stuff they just planted. These tunnels are shiprock in lots of places, especially high up. You twig that?”

  “Most have been, I believe. Nearly all.”

  “All right. They made those before they brought in dirt, see? Up on the surface, only it was bare rock then, and now that’s maybe ten, twenty cubits down. They set those stretches up and shoveled dirt around them. Then they could cart in more, and the trees, without tearin’ up what they’d already finished.”

  Maytera Mint swallowed bread. “But the deeper tunnels are bored through stone? That’s how our calde described them.”

  “Sure, that’s how they got the rock out. Look up at the skylands next time you’re out in the open. Look at how much room there is, just clouds and air, and the sun and the shade, all right? What’s a few tunnels compared to that?”

  Remora nodded vigorously. “’How mighty are the works of Pas!’ The, er, initial line of the Chrasmologic Writings, eh? Therefore known to — ah — all. Even laymen. We clergy, um, prone to forget.”

  “He pumped water through them too,” Spider continued. “You take the lake. That’s a shaggy lot of water. Think if old Pas had to bring it in barrels. So for the little stuff, he just run pipes down the tunnels, but for big ones like the lake, he put in doors to keep the water out of the ones he wanted to stay dry, and pumped. I could show you a cave by the lake with one of those doors in the back. That’s where Pas pumped in water to fill the lake, and he put in that door ’cause he didn’t want the water to wash back into his tunnels when he was done. That cave used to be under the water when the lake was bigger.”

  Spider fell silent, and Maytera Mint remarked, “Something’s troubling you.”

  “I was just thinkin’ about a couple things. I told you this side one ends in dirt, and that’s where we bury them?”

  She nodded.

  “There’s one of those doors in front of the dirt. I guess the big tunnel was one of them they pumped in, and they didn’t want water in it. What we’re in now was probably put in after. Anyway, talkin’ about doors reminded me we’re goin’ to have to bury these culls. It’ll take a lot of diggin’.”

  “I had assumed we would,” she said. “You indicated there were two points troubling you. May I ask what the second was? And what the other uses of these tunnels are?”

  “That’s the same question two times.” Spider shrugged. “You never asked me why the lake keeps gettin’ smaller.”

  “I didn’t suppose you knew, and to tell the truth, I’ve never thought much about it. The water has gone elsewhere, I suppose. Down into these tunnels, perhaps.”

  “You couldn’t be any wronger about that, General.”

  Remora put his water bottle on the floor between his feet. “You know, eh? Privy to the, um, information?”

  “Yes, I’d like to know, too,” Maytera Mint said, “if you don’t mind. And I’ve by no means finished eating yet.”

  “It’s all the same. You wanted to know what else they’re good for and somethin’ else. I forget.”

  “The second consideration that troubled you.”

  “Same thing. The sun shines all the time, don’t it?”

  “Certainly.”

  “But we get night half the time ’cause the shade’s there. It cools things off, right? When it’s hot, you’re happy to see the shade come down, ’cause you know it’s goin’ to get cooler. Wintertime, you don’t like it so much.”

  “Primary. Um, puerile. What — ah — the significance?”

  “See this room, Patera? Three doors. Let’s say they’re all shut. No windows, all right? Now s’pose the sun started at that corner there and run over to that one, about as big as a rope. That’s the whorl. That’s what it’s like, see? Goin’ to get pretty hot in here, right?”

  “I take your point,” Maytera Mint told Spider, “but I do not understand it. The whorl is very large.”

  “Not that big. It’s been goin’ for three hundred years and over. That’s what they say.”

  “The, um, fact. Provable in a — ah — many ways.”

  “Good here, Patera. It had to be hot enough for people to live in when Pas started it, see?”

  Neither Remora nor Maytera Mint spoke.

  “But it couldn’t get much hotter or we’d fry. Couldn’t get much hotter with the sun goin’ all the time. So there had to be some way to get shut of the heat.”

  “The — ah — outside, eh? Beyond the whorl. The, um, Writings state, hey? An — uh, um — frigid night.”

  “You got it. Notice how the wind blows all the time down here? It’s cold, too, colder than up top, anyhow.”

  “I, um, fail—”

  Maytera Mint interrupted. “I see! Air circulates through these tunnels, doesn’t it, Spider? Some of them must be filled with warm air bound for the night outside. The ones we’ve been in are carrying cold air back to the surface.”

  “Bull’s-eye, General. Well, it’s not workin’ as good as it did. You said about lake water goin’ in the tunnels.”

  She nodded.

  “Suppose it fills a tunnel half up. The wind can’t blow as much, see? If it fills the whole tunnel in just one spot, the wind can’t blow at all. There’s places where the shiprock gave way, too, and wind can’t blow there either. So it’s gettin’ hotter. We don’t notice, ’cause it’s too slow. But talk to old people and they’ll say winters used to be colder, and longer, too.” Spider stood. “I’m goin’ to start diggin’. You want to eat more, bring it along.”

  “I do and I will,” Maytera Mint gathered up what remained of her bread and meat, picked up her bottle of water, and rose. The bolt of the outer door clanked back; the shadowy side tunnel beyond was deserted.

  “They’ve gone off,” Spider told her over his shoulder. “I’d like to know why they started shootin’ at my boys.”

  She sighed. “Because they were Ayuntamientados, I should imagine. Four brave men who had kept Viron secure for years, slain by others who’ve guarded it for centuries. That’s what we’ve come to.”

  “Not all, eh?” Remora closed the door behind him. “All the, um. Not, ah, er, fah…” His mouth worked soundlessly.

  Maytera Mint looked around at him in some surprise. His eyes seemed to have sunk into his skull, and his nose appeared both thinner and smaller. As she watched,
his lips drew back, exposing his big, discolored teeth in a frightful grin. Spider exclaimed, “Sphigx shit!”

  “He’s not the right one,” Remora informed Maytera Mint.

  She made herself smile.

  “This is the one who talks to the one who’s not there. The right one was down here with the tall girl. He might be here.”

  “This is Mucor,” Maytera Mint explained to Spider. “She’s Maytera’s granddaughter. We’ve spoken before.

  “Do you remember, Mucor? You came to tell me our calde was in danger of capture, and I stormed the Palatine. Afterward, we met in person in the Juzgado.”

  Remora nodded, his head bobbing like a toy’s, lank black hair mercifully concealing his terrible eyes. “Incus is his name. A little augur.”

  “I don’t know him, though His Eminence has told me of him. Mucor? Mucor!”

  The death-head grin was fading.

  “Mucor, come back, please! If you see Bison or our calde, tell them — tell either or both — where I am, and that this man is holding us for Councillor Potto.”

  “You won’t be then.” The final word was almost too faint to hear. The grin vanished; Remora tossed his hair back as he habitually did, and the eyes his gesture revealed were no longer terrifying. “Not all, hey? Many on our, um, the calde’s.”

  When no one spoke, he added, “The general’s, hey?”

  “You want my needler?” Spider asked Maytera Mint.

  “Certainly, if you’re willing to let me have it.”

  He presented it butt first. “You wouldn’t shoot me, would you, General? Not with my own needler that I gave you.”

  She accepted it, glanced at it, and dropped it into one of her habit’s side pockets. “No. Only if I were compelled to, and perhaps not even then.”

  “All right I’m goin’ to dig the graves now, see? You two can finish eatin’ and watch,” Spider stepped out into the empty tunnel, “but if I’m cold ’fore I finish, it’s for me. You wrap me and slide me in. Knife’s in my pocket.”