Exodus from the Long Sun tbotls-4

by Gene Wolfe

  Maytera Mint forced herself to nod.

  “I’m goin’ to die. Probably it won’t be very long at all. Back there where we bury, I kept hopin’ they’d shoot me and I’d get to say it before I went cold, ’cause then you’d believe me. But they don’t shoot like that. The way my culls got it, you’re chilled straight off, so I got to say it right here. He was one of mine, see? Bison was. A dimber hand.”

  She could not be certain she had spoken; perhaps not.

  “He was supposed to check in every night. I’d meet him, see, in this certain place. But he only come the first time, the first night.”

  It was possible to breathe again.

  “So I sent somebody. I sent this cully we’re fetchin’, Sewellel. Bison, he told him he was out. He wouldn’t tell you anything about us, but he wouldn’t tell us anything about you, neither. That’s the lily, General. That’s how it was. I don’t blame you if you don’t believe it, and in your shoes maybe I wouldn’t. But I’m goin’ today and know it, and I’d like you to cap for me when I’m cold.”

  “Pray for your spirit.” She was still trying to wrap her understanding about the fact.

  “Yeah. So it’s lily. I told you I wouldn’t tell you who mine was, the ones you thought was yours. But he’s not mine any more. That’s what I’m tellin’ you.”

  She found herself entering the guardroom again, with no memory of having resumed their walk. “Shall I go back and cut off a piece of synthetic?” she asked. “I forgot entirely that we’d need another one. If you carry Sewellel on your shoulders, you’ll have blood all over you.”

  “I got it right here,” Spider told her. He held it up.

  “But I have your knife. You gave me that so…”

  “I used Guan’s, ’fore I wrote for him.” Spider smiled, a small, sad smile heart-wrenchingly foreign to his coarse face. “It don’t really take three. It don’t even take two, see? I been down here by myself and buried a couple times, and that’s what I do, ’cause I start by findin’ the dead cull’s knife.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m certain you must have been the only mourner that those men had, more than once.” She thrust her hands into her pockets, found his needler and her beads, and at last his knife. “Take it, please. I don’t want to bury you, Spider. I won’t. I want to save your life, and I’m going to try. I’m going to try very hard, and I’ll succeed.”

  He shook his head, but she forced the rough clasp knife into his hand. “Close the door, please. I think it would be better if we didn’t startle His Eminence.

  Striding purposefully now, she crossed the guardroom and entered the storeroom. “I should have gone in here before,” she told Spider over her shoulder. “I let His Eminence do it both times, and it was cowardly of me. This locker — I suppose that’s what you call it — with the sign of addition on it in red. Is this where the stretcher’s kept?”

  Behind her, Spider said, “Yeah, that’s it.”

  She turned, drawing his needler. “Raise both your hands, Spider. You are my prisoner.”

  He stared at her, his eyes wide.

  “He may be able to see us. I can’t be sure. Raise them! Hold them up before he kills you.”

  As Spider lifted his hands, the front of the locker swung open; a soldier stepped out and saluted, his slug gun stiffly vertical, his steel heels clashing. Maytera Mint said, “You aren’t Sergeant Sand. What’s your name?”

  “Private Schist, sir!”

  “Thank you. There’s a dead man in the outer room. I take it you killed him?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Take the synthetic this man’s holding and wrap him — the dead man out there, I mean. Wrap the dead man’s body in that. You can carry it for us.”

  Schist saluted again.

  Spider said, “You knew he was in there all the time.”

  Maytera Mint shook her head, finding herself suddenly weak with relief. “I wish I were that… I don’t know what to call it. That godlike. People believe I am, but I’m not. I have to think and think.”

  She paused to watch Schist through the doorway as he knelt beside Sewellel’s corpse. “And even then I ask Bison’s advice, and the captain’s. Often I find they’ve seen more deeply into the problem than I have. I suppose it’s useless to ask whether you were telling me the whole truth about Bison now. You can put down your hands, I think.”

  “I was, yeah.” From his expression, Spider was relieved as well. “How’d you figure he was in there?”

  “From the earth on the spade. There was fresh earth on the blade. Didn’t you notice it?”

  He shook his head.

  From the guardroom, Schist announced, “I got him, sir.”

  “Good. You’d better walk ahead of us, Spider, and put up your hands again. There are more, you see. They could have rushed you hours ago, but they must have been afraid you’d kill His Eminence and me.”

  A hundred thoughts crowded her mind. “Besides, if we let you walk behind us, you might decide that your duty to Councillor Potto compelled you to run. Then this soldier would fire.”

  “I’d hit you, too,” Schist said. “I don’t miss much.” He patted Sewellel’s swathed corpse, slung over his left shoulder.

  “Can I put my hand down to open the door?”

  “Certainly,” Maytera Mint told him; and Schist, “Sure.”

  “I ought to explain that I’ve spoken with Private Schist’s sergeant,” Maytera Mint continued as they left the guardroom. “That was on Sphixday, the day after our calde was rescued. His name is Sand, and he has come over to our side, to the calde’s side, with his entire squad. Or rather, with what remains of it, because several were killed by a talus.”

  “I know how it feels.”

  “I realize you do, Spider. Neither you nor I, nor Sergeant Sand, created war. What I was going to say is that our calde and I, with Sergeant Sand himself and Generalissimo Oosik and General Saba, conferred upon how we might make the best possible use of Schist here and the rest. Of the few soldiers we had. It wasn’t a lengthy debate, because all of us found the answer rather obvious. The soldiers knew these tunnels, and none of us did, though our calde had spent some time in them. Furthermore, down here they might encounter other soldiers whom they could bring over to our side. Plainly then, the best use that could be made of them was to send them back here to scout the enemy’s dispositions, and augment their number if they could.”

  “All right, but how’d you know he was in there from the dirt on my spade?”

  “It was fresh, as I said. Still somewhat damp. I asked about the grave that looked most new, and read the date on the paper, and it wasn’t nearly new enough. So somebody else had been burying something. I thought of an ear, as they’re called, or something of the sort, though to the best of my knowledge Sand didn’t have one.” She fell silent, listening to their echoing footsteps.

  “Go on,” Spider urged her.

  “Eventually I realized that room back there was a better place. A soldier as intelligent as Sand would surely anticipate that we would stop there to eat and talk. He’d want to know what we said, since you might say something that would be of value to him. He was right, because as soon as we arrived I began asking my questions. At any rate, he had Schist hide and listen, and when we left we were going here.”

  Already, too soon as it seemed to Maytera Mint, they had passed beneath the great iron door, and Remora was staring at Schist. She called, “It’s all right, Your Eminence! We have been rescued, and Spider is our prisoner.”

  The earth around Remora erupted as two more soldiers freed themselves from it.

  Chapter 9 — A Piece of Pas

  Auk pounded on the door of the old manse on Brick Street with the butt of his needler. Behind him, Incus cleared his throat, a soft and apologetic noise that might have issued from a rabbit or a squirrel. Behind Incus, twenty-two men and women murmured to one another.

  Auk pounded again.

  “He’s in there, trooper,” Ha
mmerstone declared. “Somebody is, anyhow. I hear him.”

  “I didn’t,” Auk remarked, “and I got good ears.”

  “Not good enough. Want me to bust the door, Patera?”

  “By no means. Auk, my son, allow me.”

  Wearily, Auk stepped away from the door. “You think you can knock better than me, Patera, you go right ahead.”

  “My knock would be no more effectual than your own, my son, I feel quite confident. Less so, if anything. My mind, however, may yet be of service.”

  “Patera’s the smartest bio there is,” Hammerstone told the crowd, “the smartest in the whole Whorl” They edged forward, trying to peer around him.

  Incus drew himself up to his full height, which was by no means great. “Blessed be this manse, in the Most Sacred Name of Pass Father of the Gods, in whose name we come. Blessed be it in the name of Gracious Echidna, His Consort, in those of their Sons and their Daughters alike, this day and until Pas’s Plan attains fulfillment, in the name of Scylla, Patroness of this Our Holy City of Viron and my own patroness.”

  Hammerstone leaned toward him, reporting in a harsh stage whisper, “They stopped moving around in there, Patera.”

  Incus filled his lungs again. “Patera Jerboa! For you we have the highest and holiest veneration. I who speak am like you a holy augur. Indeed, I am more, for I am that augur whom Scintillating Scylla herself has chosen to lead the Chapter of Our Holy City.

  “Accompanying me are two laymen who themselves have the greatest of claims to your revered attention, for they are Auk and Hammerstone, the biochemical person and the chemical one, cojoined, selected by Lord Pas himself to execute his will at a holy sacrifice at which I presided, this very—”

  The door opened a hand’s breadth, and the pale, affrighted face of Patera Shell appeared. “You — you… Are you really an augur?”

  “I am, my son. But if you are Patera Jerboa, the augur of this manteion, you are the wrong Patera Jerboa, one whom we do not seek.”

  From behind Hammerstone, the foremost of Auk’s followers declared, “He ain’t no augur! Twig his gipon.”

  Incus turned back to address him, one small foot blocking the door. “Oh, but he is, my son. Do I not know my own kind? No mere tunic can deceive me.”

  “Yeah,” Auk put in, “he’s a augur right enough, or I never seen one. C’mere, Patera.” Catching Shell’s wrist, he jerked him through the doorway. “What’s your name?”

  Shell only stared at him with wide eyes, his mouth opening and shutting.

  “He’s Patera Shell, my acolyte,” announced a white-bearded man who had taken Shell’s place; his antiquated voice creaked and groaned like the wheel of an overloaded cart, although he wore a brilliant blue tunic intended for a young man. “I’m Patera Jerboa, and I’m augur here.” His rheumy eyes fastened upon Incus, “You’re looking for me. I don’t hear much any more, but I heard that. Very well.” Jerboa stepped through the doorway and traced the sign of addition between Incus and himself, making it both higher and wider than was currently customary. “Do what you came to, but let Shell go.”

  Auk already had. “You’re the cull, all right. You got a Window in your manteion, Patera?”

  “It would not be a manteion without one. I’ve—” Jerboa coughed and spat. “I’ve served my Window for sixty-one years. I’d…” He fell silent, sucking his gums as he looked ftom Auk to Incus and back. “Who’s in charge here?”

  “I am,” Auk told him, and offered his hand. “I’m what you call a theodidact, Patera. Patera Incus there ought to have told you. I been enlightened by Tartaros. Right now, I’m doing a job for his pa. So’re they.” He jerked his thumb at Hammerstone and Incus, then held out his hand again.

  Jerboa clasped it, his own hand dry and cold, with a grip that seemed oddly weak for its size; for a moment his eyes were bright. “I was going to say that I’d like to die in front of my Sacred Window, my son, but you haven’t come to kill us.”

  “Course not. Thing is, Patera, you got a piece of Pas.”

  Shell, who had relaxed somewhat, stared again.

  “He wants it back now. He sent us to get it for him.”

  “My son—”

  “That’s the job I been talking about, Patera. That’s what he asked me to do for him at the theophany.”

  One of Auk’s followers called, “This afternoon, Patera! We were there!”

  “There has been another?” Jerboa lifted his raddled old face to the vanishing thread of gold that was the long sun, and seemed at that moment nearly as tall as Auk.

  “At Silk’s manteion!” the same follower called.

  Auk nodded. “Only this time it was Pas, Patera. You know about that, don’t you? You seen him one time yourself, that’s what he said.”

  “He did,” Shell announced unexpectedly.

  “Dimber here.” Auk felt the last lingering doubt melt away, and grinned. “That’s good, Patera. That’s real good! People talk about how long it’s been since any god come to a Window, or they did ’fore Kypris told us we could solve any place we wanted that night. Only they don’t never say when last time was, or who it was that got the god to come. Pas said it was you and gave your name, but we didn’t know where to find you.”

  Shell looked beseechingly at Incus. “I don’t understand, Patera. The Peace of Pas? Patera’s brought the Peace of Pas to thousands, I’m sure, but—”

  “A chunk of him,” Hammerstone explained. “Like a slice, sort of, or if I was to unscrew one of my fingers.”

  “We need some animals for him,” Auk announced, raising his voice. “A whole herd of ’em. Listen up, you culls! We found him. This right here’s the holy augur that’s got a piece of Pas in his head, a piece that Pas wants back. Our job was to find him. I mean mine and Hammerstone’s, and Patera’s here.”

  A sibyl, herself stooped and old, appeared like a shadow at Jerboa’s side. “Are they going to hurt you, Patera? I came through the manse. I broke the rule, but I don’t care. If you are — if they’re going to do something bad to you…”

  “It will be all right, Maytera,” the old augur assured her. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Still addressing his followers, Auk told them, “We did our job, and it’s your turn. You want to be part of this? Part of the biggest thing that’s ever happened yet? You want to bring Pas back for people everywhere in the whorl? You get us those animals now, good ones. Get ’em anyway you can, and bring ’em back to this manteion.”

  “You can’t answer your own door,” Maytera Marble scolded Silk. “You simply cannot!”

  He resumed his seat, vaguely unhappy that the longed-for respite from the stacks of paper before him would be postponed. The city’s various accounts at the Fisc totalled — he tapped his pencil in unconscious imitation of Swallow — not much over four hundred thousand cards. In private hands it would have been a vast fortune; but the Guard had to be paid, as did the commissioners, clerks, and other functionaries, to say nothing of the contractors who sometimes cleaned the streets and were supposed to keep them in repair.

  His mouth twisting, he recalled his promise — so lightly given — to reward those who had fought bravely on either side.

  All four taluses would have to be paid for as well before Swallow would deliver even one; it was in the contract he had signed less than an hour ago. Long before those taluses were finished, the Guard would need food, ammunition, and repairs to five armed floaters. (For the tenth or twelfth time that day, Silk considered using those floaters in the tunnels and rejected it.) Meanwhile, both the taluses the Guard employed currently, the remnant of those it had when the fighting began, would have to be paid as well.

  Maytera Marble reentered, bowing. “It’s Generalissimo Oosik, Patera. He desires to speak with you at once.” Oosik’s bulky form was visible in the reception hall beyond the ornate doorway, rocking back and forth with impatience.

  “Of course,” Silk said heartily. “Show him in, please, Maytera. I apologize for
asking you to get the door.”

  “It was no trouble, Patera. I was glad to do it.”

  Behind her, Oosik was already marching into the room; he halted before Silk’s work table and saluted with a flourish and a click of polished heels. “I trust that your wounds are not too troublesome, Calde.

  “Not at all, Generalissimo. Thank you, Maytera — that will be all.”

  “Coffee, Patera? Tea?”

  Oosik shook his head.

  “No, but thank you.” Silk waved her away. “Pull up a chair, Generalissimo. Sit down and relax. Have you found — ?”

  Oosik shook his head. “I regret not, Calde.”

  “Sit down. What is it, then?”

  “You watched the parade, as I did.” Oosik carried over an armless chair that looked too small for him.

  “The Guard detachment was amazingly trim, I thought, for having just been taken from the fighting.”

  “Pah!” Oosik blew aside the detachment. “I thank you, Calde. You are gracious. But the Trivigauntis? That was the thing to see, Siyuf’s horde.”

  Silk, who had been wondering how to bring up the matters that had occupied his mind earlier in the afternoon, tried to seize the opportunity. “It was what I didn’t see that seemed most significant. Sit down, please. I don’t like having to look up at you like this.”

  Oosik sat. “You saw their infantry. I hope you were impressed, as I was.”

  “Of course.”

  “Also their cavalry. A great deal of that, Calde. Twice what I had expected.” Oosik wound one end of his white-tipped mustache around his finger and tugged.

  “The cavalry was beautiful, certainly, but I was struck by their guns; I’d never seen big guns like that. Do we — do you have any, Generalissimo?”

  “A few, yes. Never as many as I would like. What did you think of their floaters, Calde?”

  “There weren’t any.”

  “What of the taluses? I should like your opinion, Calde.”

  Silk shook his head. “You won’t get it, Generalissimo. There weren’t any of those either. That is a matter—”

  “Precisely so!” Oosik released his mustache and waved his forefinger to emphasize his point. “I do not seek to embarrass you, Calde. Every man knows much upon some subjects, little or nothing on others. It cannot be otherwise. No one can predict what will happen in war, yet a commander must try. What sort of fighting does Siyuf anticipate here? A horde shapes itself as a man dresses, at one time to hunt, at another to attend the theater. I have seen her horde now, and I will tell you.”