Exodus from the Long Sun tbotls-4

by Gene Wolfe

  Smoothly, Siyuf overrode her. “General Saba has say to me he suffer a broken ankle, Maytera. Maytera? It is how you are addressed?”

  She nodded. “Yes, he did. He does. A week ago Phaesday, I think it was. He fell. But — but…”

  “He limp. So I observed. He was in greatest haste, he took big steps. No so big of the right leg, however. The old swordswoman — sword-man. He, also, but the left.”

  “The calde was shot.” Maytera Marble indicated her own chest with her working hand. “That’s much worse.”

  “Not a slug gun, which would have kill there. A needler?” Siyuf glanced around the table, seeking information.

  Oosik shrugged and spread his hands. “Yes, Generalissimo. A needler in the hand of one of my own officers. We strive to prevent these terrible mistakes. They occur in spite of all we do, as you must know.”

  “This is a remarkable young man. We do not breed like him in Trivigaunte, I think. Do you know the — what is this word? The ideas of Colonel Abanja?”

  Oosik nodded to Siyufs staff officer. “I would like to hear them, particularly if they coneern our calde. What are they, Colonel?”

  “I am something of an amateur historian, Generalissimo. An amateur military historian, if you will allow it.”

  “Every good officer should be.”

  “Thank you. I’m accused of shaping my theory to flatter Generalissimo Siyuf, but that is not the case. I have studied success. Not victory alone, because victory can be a matter of chance, and is frequently a matter of numbers and materiel. I searh out instances in which a small force has frustrated one that should have defeated it in days or hours.”

  Saba had regained her self-possession. “I still say that it is brilliance that’s decisive. Military genius.”

  Maytera Marble sniffed decisively, and Siyuf said, “Colonel Abanja does not think this. Brilliance, it is well enough when the execution of the so-brilliant orders is brilliant also. I do not speak of genius for I know nothing. Except it is rare and not to be relied on.”

  Bison said, “I have a theory of my own, based on what I’ve seen of General Mint. I’ll be interested to see how it compares to the Colonel’s.”

  “I mention Abanja’s,” Siyuf continued, “because I think Calde Silk so fine an example of him. She believe it is not this genius, not any quality of the mind. That it is energy, by clearest thoughts directed. Tell us, Abanja.”

  “Successful commanders,” Colonel Abanja began, “are those who are still acting, and acting sensibly, on the fourth day. They endure. We have a game that we play on horseback. I don’t think you play it here, but I’ve won a good deal of money by betting on the games during the past year.”

  The ends of Oosik’s mustache tilted upward. “Then you must tell us by all means, Colonel.”

  “It imitates war, as most games do. A cavalry skirmish in this case. The players may change mounts after each goal, but the players themselves can’t be changed, or even replaced if one is hurt.” Both Oosik and his son nodded.

  “There is a twenty-minute rest for them, however, and so we speak of the first half of the game and the second, divided by this rest. What determines the result, I have found, is not which team scores the most goals in the first half, because there’s seldom much disparity. The winning team will be the one that plays best and most aggressively in the second. When I see the team I’ve backed doing that, I double my bet, if I can.”

  Siyuf nodded. Her head moved scarcely one finger’s width, but the nod announced that the time for controversy had ended. “Let us move from the fields where killi is played to this city of Viron, where is a so illustrative struggle. Who is winner? It is not too soon to say. One side hide in holes. Above prowl and roars the host of Viron and my horde of the Rani. For the second time I ask you that listen.” She paused dramatically. “Who is winner here?”

  No one spoke.

  “A man? This man Calde Silk? Can that be? Observe the leg broken, the wound to the chest of which Maytera our hostess speak. Yet he hunt by magic for a woman he require, and when by magic she is found, he leave food and friends and seek her out. Most women, even, would not do this.”

  Chenille said, “He’s going to need a lot more help than one old man. I wish I’d made him take me along.”

  Across Xiphias’s abandoned plate, Mattak said, “Two old men. His Cognizance has gone, too.” Surprised, Siyuf stared at the empty chair next to her own.

  Under his breath, Mattak added, “I’m glad.”

  Sergeant Sand spoke for them all. “He didn’t come.”

  Kneeling by the headless, pawless body of Eland’s second beast, Remora looked up. “I shall — ah — proceed. I have, um, led astray myself. Enthusiasm. Contagious, eh? But I, um, coadjutor, have not, eh? Seen a god. Possibly the victim will enlighten us.”

  As the holy knife laid open the beast from breastbone to pelvis, Spider said, “Sure, read it for us, it can’t hurt.”

  It hurt the poor brute, Maytera Mint thought; but its death was swift, at least, and now the pain is over.

  Sand had brought his slug gun to his shoulder before she saw Urus, halfway up the convoluted iron stair at the back of the manteion and taking its steps three at a time. She shouted, “Don’t fire!” and Sand did not. A moment later the door at the top of the stair slammed shut. “He thought we were going to offer him,” she explained to Eland. “Do you? We won’t. I will not permit it.”

  Remora, who had been kneeling by the second victim, rose and strode to the ambion. “Extraordinary, eh? Extraordinary, my, er, sons. And daughter. Nothing, er, initially, and now this.” Sand resumed his seat, his head bowed.

  “An — ah — preface. Necessary, I think. The offering of persons was practiced in the past in — ah — here. Many of you aware of it. Have to be. Forbidden within, um, by the present holder of the baculus.”

  O you gods, Maytera Mint thought, he’s going to say the entrails order us to sacrifice Eland. What am I to do?

  “In practice, children, hey? Almost always. No sense sending a messenger who cannot see the, er, the recipient, eh? The offering of, um, persons, children, by no means usual even then, eh? In dire need. Only then.”

  Slate shifted his position until he stood behind Eland.

  “Before my time. As an augur, eh? I would have — ah — declared…” Remora paused, his bony hands gripping the edges of the ambion, his eyes on the headless carcass.

  “Never, eh? Couldn’t do it. Not a child. Not even, um, Urus. Now — ah — two sides to the entrails. You follow me? One for the congregation and the city. Other the presenter and the augur. For the — ah — Our Holy City, war, death, and destruction. Bad. Calamitous! For the, um, myself, I shall. Offer a person, er, human being. Man. So Pas warns us. Me.”

  Maytera Mint said firmly, “Eland, can you see the gods?”

  He looked at her in mild surprise. “I dunno, General. I never saw any.”

  There was no time for delicacy. “Have you had a woman? You must have!”

  “Sure. Lots of times ’fore I got throwed in the pit.”

  She turned to Remora. “He is not suitable. I can see that, Your Eminence, and you must—”

  Sand stood up. “I am.” He jabbed his steel chest with a steel thumb; the noise it made was like the clank of a heavy chain.

  “You can’t mean it!”

  “Yes, sir, I do.” With oiled precision, Sand mounted the steps to the sanctuary. “He came. Great Pas came to the Grand Manteion.”

  Maytera Mint nodded reluctantly.

  “He talked to the Prolocutor, and he told him to talk to us. To me. He said for us to get you out, ’cause it’s part of the Plan. The Plan’s the most important thing there is, sir.”

  “Certainly.”

  “You say that,” he advanced on her, formidable as a talus, five hundredweight metal. “’Cause they taught you to in some palaestra. I say it ’cause I know it in my pump. He said get you and sacrifice, and he’d come and tell us what to do next. Pas
said that.”

  Meekly, she nodded again.

  “So we caught the bios, and then I thought maybe it’s not enough so I made them catch the two gods.”

  “Bufes, Sergeant.”

  “Whatever. Only the bufes aren’t any good, and now you and him say the bios are no good either, sir.” Sand wheeled to face Remora and pushed his slug gun into Remora’s hands. “I knew, Patera. ’Fore you read it, I knew. You ever want to die?”

  “I? Ah — no.”

  He’s lying, Maytera Mint thought. I know what it is, and so does he.

  “I do.” Sand gestured toward Schist, Slate, and Shale. “So do they. Maybe they won’t say it, but they do. I want to die for Pas, and I’m going to right now.” He knelt, staring at the floor, and Remora looked helplessly down at the slug gun.

  Maytera Mint murmured, “If you would prefer not to, Your Eminence, it would certainly be permissible for someone more familiar with the weapon to act for you.”

  “You, er, concur, General?”

  She sighed. “Sometimes generals need sergeants to recall them to their duty. So it seems. Whether I learned it in a palaestra or not, Sergeant Sand is right. The Plan is the most important thing in the whorl, and the victim consents.”

  Still on his knees, Sand muttered, “Thanks, sir.”

  She knelt beside him. “I’ve heard it’s possible for chems to — to reproduce. You’ve never done that?”

  Slate said, “None of us have, General, and there’s hardly any fem chems left.” And Sand, “No. Never.”

  She turned back to Remora and held out her hands for the slug gun. “I’ve never fired one either, Your Eminence, but I know how they work and I’ve seen it done thousands of times since this began.”

  “No, Mayt — No, General.”

  “Please, Your Eminence. For your own sake.”

  He silenced her by raising Sand’s slug gun and pointing it awkwardly at Sand. “Precisely. Ah — to the point. For my sake, General. If I must, um, officiate, the — ah — holy and um, self-sacrificing. Sole responsibility. Do you follow me? Criminal penalties, hey? Religious, likewise. Removed from the — ah — active clergy.”

  His wheezing breath seemed to fill the manteion. “But for him — ah — highest god. For Pas!” He jerked at the trigger.

  “Not like that, Your Eminence. There’s a safety, and if you hold it that way the recoil will cripple you. Or so I’m assured.” She positioned the slug gun in his hands. “Grasp it firmly, tight against your shoulder, Then it will merely push you backwards. If you hold it loosely and try to keep it away, it will fly back and strike you like a club.”

  Sand said, “In the head, Patera. That’s the best.”

  “I am augur here,” Remora told him, and fired.

  The crash of the shot was deafening in the enclosed space of the manteion. Sand rose; for an instant Maytera Mint could not see where the slug had hit him. Spinning to face the Sacred Window, he threw up both arms. There was an uncanny sound that might have been a cry of pain or harsh laughter. Black liquid spurted from his throat, spattering the clean black habit she had just put on.

  And the Holy Hues began before Sand fell.

  She blinked and stared, then blinked again. Not one face but two crowded the Window, one gaping and gasping, the other radiant with power and majesty, just — and more than just — pitiless and nurturing. “My faithful people,” intoned Twice-headed Pas, “receive the blessing of your god.”

  “I see him!” From the voice she thought it must be Spider, although she could not be sure.

  Pas’s was thunder and a destroying wind. “Carry this most noble of my soldiers to the Grand manteion. I shall speak—”

  Both his faces faded. Tawny yellows and iridescent blacks filled the Window on Mainframe. Serpents writhed across it as scorpions scuttled over their backs; behind them all, Spider and Maytera Mint, Eland and Remora, Slate, Shale, and Schist saw the agonized face of Echidna.

  Pas returned as if Echidna had never been. “There our prophet Auk will restore him to us.”

  Chapter 11 — Lovers

  As the floater rose, Hossaan said, “I’ve a dozen things to tell you, Calde. I know there won’t be time for all of them. It’s only four streets.”

  “I know where it is,” Silk snapped. “Hurry!” Xiphias laid a hand on his arm. “Easy, lad!”

  Hossaan glanced at the small mirror above his head, and his eyes met Silk’s. “So I’m going to tell the most important one first. You think there won’t be anybody at the Grand Manteion when Hy gets there, and you’re afraid she’ll leave.”

  “Yes!”

  “That’s not right. I told you I had to talk to General Mint on your glass, and that was what made me late.” Heeling like a close-hauled boat, the floater swerved around a gilded litter with eight bearers.

  “I said we’d discuss it later.”

  “Right. Only because of what she said, I thought it might be smart to have a look at the Grand Manteion. There’s three augurs in there and a couple thousand people.”

  “Did you see Hyacinth?”

  Hossaan shook his head. “But I could’ve missed her pretty easily, Calde. She’s not as tall as the redhead, and there was a bunch of women with animals.”

  Oreb muttered, “No cut.”

  “She’s probably still outside, Calde. If she was climbing the Palatine when Mucor said she was, she can’t have gotten to the Grand Manteion yet.”

  Xiphias asked, “Why’s everybody there, lad?”

  “There’s been another theophany — there must have been. Do you know about Pas appearing to His Cognizance?”

  “No, lad! Never heard about it!”

  “I have,” Hossaan said. “There’s a rumor, anyhow. Do you think that’s brought them?”

  Silk shook his head. “It was Molpsday, and would be stale news now.” Half to himseif he added, “What does it mean, when a dead god rises?”

  No one answered him. The floater sped on.

  A surging crowd filled Gold Street. “Stop!” Silk ordered Hossaan. “No! Higher if you can. I saw her. Turn around.”

  “Near us, Calde?” They rose, blowers racing.

  “Cut!” Oreb exclaimed. “Cut cat!”

  “Two or three streets down the slope. Turn!”

  The floater darted forward instead. “Your bird’s right,” Hossaan told Silk. “It would take too long to get through that mob, but we can duck down here—” He swerved onto a steep and narrow street bordered by high walls. “And cut across to Gold so we come up behind her. We’ll be moving with them, and that will make it a lot faster.”

  Silk drew breath and exhaled. The aching weakness in his chest was fading, but it seemed to him that he had not filled his lungs properly for days. “You told Horn that your name was Willet, Willet. Also you found clothing — somewhere in the Calde’s Palace, I suppose — similar to the waiters’, so that you could help them serve.”

  “I like to be useful, calde.”

  “I know you do, and it may be useful for you to tell me why you did those things before we locate Hyacinth — if we do. You say you have a dozen items to relate. That should be the next.”

  Still steering their floater expertly, Hossaan glanced over his shoulder at Xiphias.

  “If Master Xiphias and Maytera Marble can’t be trusted, no one can. If I explain your actions — I believe I can, you see — will you tell me whether I’m correct?”

  They spun around a corner as though it were an eddy. “I’m afraid not. General Mint says Siyufs surrounded the Juzgado. That’s why I thought I ought to check on the Grand Manteion.”

  “Where was she, and how did she learn of it?”

  “I don’t know, calde. She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. She said one of Oosik’s officers told her. Oosik had told him to try and get in touch with her.”

  Xiphias said, “He left when Willet here was handing out those appetizers, lad! Another waiter fetched him, remember?”

  “Later than that —
after I had asked Mucor to find out to which manteion Hyacinth was bringing her offering.”

  Their floater tacked on Gold, pushing through chattering pedestrians.

  “You know what she looks like,” Silk muttered. “She had on a black coat, and was carrying a large rabbit, I believe.”

  “Cat talk,” Oreb informed him. “Talk bad.”

  “The bird’s right, lad! The skinny girl said it talks!” Before Xiphias had finished speaking, their floater was slowing and stopping; the canopy slid into its back and sides.

  For the space of a breath, Silk thought there had been a mistake. The hurrying young woman with something orange-furred tucked under her arm seemed too tall and too slender until she turned with their cowling nudging her leg, and he saw her face.

  “Hyacinth!” He stood up by reflex, and for a moment he was half outside the floater (and she more than half in it) as they kissed.

  When that kiss ended, they lay face-to-face on the soft leather seat, she crowded against its back and he practically falling off, with Xiphias standing over them and waving his saber to force passersby to keep their distance. They sat up, but their hands would not part. “I was afraid you were dead,” Silk confessed.

  And Hyacinth, “I shaggy near was, and I — but I…” Her eyes swam with tears. “Can’t we put up the top?”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “I do.” She freed her hand, and with a flurry of skirt and ruffled underskirt, and a flash of legs and spike-heeled scarlet shoes, was in Hossaan’s seat. Xiphias ducked, and the canopy flowed up and darkened until it was nearly opaque.

  She wiped her eyes. “Now I’m coming back. Catch me.” She rolled over the back of the front seat so that Silk had to, and lying in his arms kissed him again. With no need of speech, her kiss said, Beat me, shame and starve me. Do as you want with me, but don’t leave me. I’ll never do those things, he thought, and tried to make his own kiss tell her so.

  When they parted, he gasped, “Where do we start?”

  She smiled. “That WAS the start. I love you. Let’s start from there. I haven’t felt this way since — since you jumped out my window.”