by Gene Wolfe
Horn nodded reluctantly. “I guess so, Calde.”
“Furthermore, Hyacinth knew that I meant to return General Saba’s airship when we returned to the city. May not Hyacinth have considered that General Saba might at some future date be a good and strong friend to Viron?”
Through the break in the tunnel wall, Hyacinth called, “Aren’t you coming down?”
“Soon,” Silk told her. “We’re not finished here.”
“Calde, she’s the one dropping mortar bombs on us. General Saba is. That’s her up there in the airship right now.”
“It is indeed; but she’s dropping them because she’s been ordered to, as any good officer would. I doubt very much that Hyacinth cherished any hope of suborning General Saba from her duty; but there are many times when an officer, particularly a high-ranking one, may exercise discretion. Hyacinth tried, I believe, to do what she could to make certain any such decisions would favor us — more specifically, my government.”
“But we’re going. You said so on the airship, and before we found this way, we were going to have to walk all the way to the Juzgado. On the Short Sun Whorl, it won’t matter whether General Saba likes us or not, will it?”
“No. But Hyacinth could not have known aboard the airship that we would be leaving this soon, and she may even have hoped that we would not leave at all. I think she did.”
“I see.” Horn nodded; and when Silk did not speak again, he said, “Calde, we’d better go.”
“Soon, as I said. There’s one more thing — no, two. The first is that whatever that act might mean to me, or to you, or even to General Saba, it meant next to nothing to Hyacinth; she has performed similar ones hundreds of times with any number of partners. With Generalissimo Oosik, for example.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“No. But I do — he told me. When she had to leave the house of the commissioner who had obtained her from her father — I don’t even know which it was — she lived for a time with a captain. Eventually they quarreled and separated.”
“You don’t have to tell me all this, Calde.”
“Yes, I do. Not for your book — which you will probably never complete or even begin — but for guidance in your own life. Who was that captain? Would you care to guess?”
Horn shook his head.
“I think I can. He was very formal with her, but I saw his eyes — particularly when he stopped our horse. I don’t believe he meant much to her; he was a protector and provider when she needed one. She meant a great deal to him, however — no doubt she always will.”
Horn whispered, “She’s climbing back up,” and pointed.
Silk scrambled halfway down the crater to meet and assist her. “I won’t say I’m not delighted to see you — I’m always overjoyed to see you, Hyacinth, you know that. But Horn and I were about to join you down there.”
Entering the crater from the tunnel, Nettle called, “You wouldn’t believe all the people down here, Calde. Half the quarter. Marrow the greengrocer, and Shrike the butcher, and even the new augur that was with us on the airship. Moly’s here, and he’s making her wear his robe. The Prolocutor made everybody sit down.”
Horn offered his hand to Hyacinth, and the other to Silk. “My mother, and my brothers and sisters. That’s what I care about, only…” Something caught in his throat. “Only that sounds like I don’t care about my father.”
“But you do,” Hyacinth muttered. “I know how it is.”
“Yeah, I guess so. He made me work in the shop every day after palaestra, and — and we’d fight about that, and lots of other stuff.”
“I understand.”
“I’m the oldest,” Horn said, as though that accounted for everything.
Silk called, “If half the quarter’s down there, what about our manteion? The congregation, I mean, the people who came to sacrifice on Scylsday and the children from the palaestra?”
“They’re just about all here,” Nettle told him. “Not some of the men, they’re off fighting for General Mint. But, oh, Goldcrest and Feather and Villus, and my friend Ginger. Wait, let me think. Teasel is, and her sisters and brothers and her mother. And Asphodella and Aster. And Kit — he’s Kerria’s little brother, and she’s there too. And Holly and Hart. He’s wounded. And the catsmeat woman, and that old man that sells ices in the summer, and a whole lot more.”
Silk nodded, then smiled at Hyacinth. “I’ve done it — saved it from the dissolution of the whorl. Or at least I will have when we reach the new one. I was to save our manteion; and that is the manteion, all of those people coming together to worship. The rest was trimming, very much including me.”
Hyacinth could not look at him.
“When you came back up, I was explaining to Horn that in the end it is only love that matters. The Outsider once told me that though he’s not Kypris, she cannot help becoming him. The more she becomes a goddess of love in truth, the more they will unite — it was before we met in Ermine’s by the goldfish pool.” He smiled again. “Where Thelx holds up a mirror.”
Hyacinth nodded; and Horn saw that her eyes were filled with tears. He asked, “Did you really see him there, Calde? The Outsider?”
“Yes, in a dream, standing upon the water. I had only this left Horn, and there’s no reason I shouldn’t say it now, or that Hyacinth and Nettle shouldn’t hear it. It is that love forgets injuries. I know that Hyacinth would never betray me, just as you know that Nettle would never betray you; but if she did — if she did a thousand times — I would still love her.”
Almost violently, Hyacinth pushed herself away from the crater. “I can’t listen to any more of this. I don’t want to, and I won’t.” She stood up.
Silk said, “Then let us go,” and began to climb down to the break in the tunnel wall.
“I’m not going!” Hyacinth shouted. Her lovely face was savage. “You told me about that place, and I’ve seen it, and it’s horrible! All the landers are broken, you said, not like Auk’s, and you’re just hoping to fix them. And you’re giving up the whole city!” She turned and dashed away, vanishing in the swirling snow before she had taken five strides.
Silk tried to scramble back, but in his haste set off a slide that carried him almost to Nettle, who followed him when he began to climb again.
When he reached the surface and started after Hyacinth, Horn and Nettle went with him. A bomb burst near enough to shake the earth beneath their feet, and he stopped. “You have to go, both of you, and you must go together.”
His eyes flashed even in that snowy twilight. “Nettle, do you understand? Do you, Horn? I’ll find her, and enough cards to repair another lander. Get down there, find His Cognizance, and tell him. We’ll meet you at the landers, if we can.”
Nettle took Horn’s hand, and Silk said, “Make him go. By force, if you must.” He offered her his needler, but she drew her own, the one that had been Saba’s. He nodded, put his back in his waistband, and disappeared into the snow like a ghost. Overhead, the harsh voice of his bird sounded again and again: “Silk? Silk? Silk?”
For a score of poundings of their hearts, Nettle and Horn stood together, staring after him and wondering what the future held for them; until at length they smiled as one, she gave him Saba’s needler, and hand-in-hand they returned to the crater and scrambled down to the opening that a bomb had made in the tunnel wall, and went into the tunnel, where Horn’s mother was waiting for them.
My Defense
With the account you have now read, I had intended to conclude The Book of Silk, for we never saw him again. I am adding this continuation in response to criticisms and questions directed to us by those who read the earlier sections, sections which Nettle has corrected, and transcribed in a hand clearer than mine.
Many of you urge me to tell the story in my proper person, relating only what I saw, and in effect making myself my own hero. I reply that any of you might write such an account. I invite you to do so.
My purpose is not (as you wish) merely
to describe the way in which we who were born in Viron reached Blue, but to recount the story of Patera Silk, who was its calde at the time we left and was the greatest and most extraordinary man I have known. As I have indicated, I had planned to call my account The Book of Silk, and not Starcrossers’ Landfall or any of the other titles (many equally foolish) that have been suggested. In the event, it has become known as The Book of the Long Sun, because it is much read by young people who do not recall our Long Sun Whorl, or were born after Landing Day. I do not object. You may call it what you wish as long as you read it.
To our critics, I say this: Patera Silk was personally known to Nettle and me; I recall his look, his voice, and his gait to this day, and when young I was punished for imitating him too well, as you have read. Nettle knew him as well as I.
We knew Maytera Marble (who also employed the names Moly, Molybdenum, Maggie, and Magnesia, the last being her original name) at least as well. Until we reached our teens, she was our instructress in the palaestra on Sun Street, as Maytera Mint and Maytera Rose were subsequently. Silk loved her and confided in her; in fact, I have often thought that she had been given the child she longed for, although she was not conscious of it. She in turn confided in us during the time we worked in the Calde’s Palace under her direction, during the time we were together on the airship, and during our passage through the abyss, and here on Blue. To prevent confusion, I have called her Maytera Marble throughout my account. There was never a more practical woman, nor a better one.
On the flight to Mainframe, we had many opportunities to see and hear Auk, though he was not generally communicative. Chenille, with whom we had worked at the Calde’s Palace, often spoke of him as well. Silk did not, as some readers assume, confide to us the content of Auk’s shriving, although he told me that he had shriven him upon meeting him in the Cock. That Auk had kicked a man to death was known throughout the quarter, and it seems probable that it was one of the offences of which he was shriven. Chenille confided to Nettle that he had struck her on two occasions, and described them.
More than one reader has taxed me with whitewashing Auk’s character. It is more probable that I have painted it too dark; I disliked him, and even after so many years have found it hard to treat him fairly. As I have tried to make clear, he was a big man and an extremely strong one, far from handsome, with a beard so heavy that he appeared unshaven even when he had just shaved; although he was said to be courageous and a free spender, few besides Silk, Chenille, and Gib ever spoke well of him.
If I found it hard to be fair to Auk, I found it harder still to be fair to Hyacinth, whose extraordinary beauty was at once her blessing and her curse. She had little education, far too much vanity, and a savage temper. When Nettle was present, she displayed herself to me, posing, bending over to exhibit her decolletage, raising her skirt to adjust her hose, and so forth. In Nettle’s absence, she cursed me if I so much as glanced at her. She saw all human relationships in terms of money, power, and lust, and understood Silk less well than Tick understood her.
Very few of us, I would say, have known such a woman as General Mint; and it is almost impossible to convey an accurate impression of her to those who have not. She was small, with a smooth little face, a sharp nose, and a dart of brown hair that divided her forehead almost to the eyebrows. In conversation her voice was the soft and timorous one we recalled from her classroom; but when the need for quick, decisive action arose, the little sibyl was cast off immediately. Her glance was fire and steel then, and at the sound of her voice wounded troopers who had seemed too weak to stand snatched up weapons and joined the advance. Unless restrained by her subordinates, she led her troops in person, striding boldly ahead of the boldest and never slackening her pace as she shouted encouragement to those behind her. If it had not been for Bison and Captain Serval, she would certainly have been killed by the second day.
As a tactician, she understood better than most the need for a simple workable plan which could be put into effect before conditions changed; that and the astounding loyalty she inspired were the keys to her success. Although she is better known as General Mint, I have titled her Maytera, just as I have referred to her sib as Maytera Marble throughout my account. Fewer than I had expected have found fault with Silk’s assertion that she took her warlike character from the Goddess of Love, although it seems implausible to me. Nettle suggests that many women, thus inspired by love of their city and their gods, might exhibit the same dauntless courage. Certainly love will face the inhumi at midnight, as we say now.
Although neither of us spoke to Blood, both of us saw and heard him when he visited the manteion, and saw him and Musk when they offered their white rabbits. Blood’s conversations with Silk and Maytera Marble were detailed to us by them; they, I would guess, saw more good in him than Nettle or I would have.
Neither of us ever saw Doctor Crane, but Maytera Marble had met him and liked him, as Silk had. Chenille, who had known him intimately, said that he looked on injury and illness as a butcher looks on pigs and steers; and I have tried to convey something of that. From what Silk said of him, he believed in Sphigx no more than any other god, and had her reality been proven to him, he would only have turned from ridiculing those who credited it to ridiculing her.
I have taken Incus’s character from Remora’s description and our own observations during the flight to Mainframe. He was physically unimpressive, and perhaps for that reason frequently impelled to assert his importance, but not lacking in courage. On the airship I watched him ‘enchant’ a slug gun by slipping his finger behind the trigger, then snatch it from the trooper as she struggled to fire it.
Many readers have demanded that I include an account of our passage through the tunnels to the lander and our flight through the abyss. Again I invite them to pen their own, as Scleroderma did. (Her grandson has it and permits visitors to copy it.) I intend to say no more here than is necessary to illuminate the character of the inhumu Nettle and I knew as Patera Quetzal, His Cognizance the Prolocutor of Viron. No doubt many will object to my writing character in such a context, urging that a monster of that kind can no more have character than a hus; but those who trap hus and tame them have told me they differ at least as much as dogs.
To us Quetzal was not an inhumu, but a venerable old man, wise and compassionate, Silk’s supporter and steadfast friend. When Nettle and I returned to the tunnel it was to him that we brought Silk’s message. When they had heard it, many wanted to return to the surface to look for Silk and help him search for Hyacinth. Quetzal forbade it, pointing out that it was contrary to Silk’s own instructions, and led us down the tunnel in the direction of the lake.
Then I remembered something that Remora had told me on the airship: how Quetzal had vanished when Spider forced him into the cellar of Blood’s ruined villa. When we had walked a long way down the tunnel and even the hardiest had grown weary, and Quetzal himself had fallen behind nearly all of our straggling company, I was able to ask about it.
“Walk beside me, my son.” He put a hand on my shoulder; I recall how light and boneless it felt through the thin jacket I wore, as if he had laid a strip of soft leather beside my neck. “I can’t keep up any more. Will you support me? You’re young and strong. Patera Calde likes you, did you know that?”
I said I hoped he did, and that he had always been kind to me.
“He likes you. He speaks of you warmly, and of you, my child. You’re both good children. Good children, I say. But men and women with children are children to me. No fool like an old man! You women are wiser when you’re old, my child. You’re grown, both of you. I doubt you know it, but you are.”
We thanked him.
“I can hardly get along. Like the fat woman. Can’t leave her, can we? Can’t leave them back there, and she’s too heavy to carry.” He was wearing an ordinary augur’s robe; but he bore the baculus, his rod of office, which he used as a staff.
I said that we would have to stop soon for Scleroderma’s sake, an
d many others, and offered to go ahead if he would tell me what to look for.
“I want you to sleep, my son.” He seemed to suck his gums and reconsidered. “No, to keep watch. Can you stay awake?”
I assured him that I could.
“Good. Someone must, and I can’t. I’m always nodding off, ask young Remora. I can’t keep up this pace myself, but I have to keep urging everybody to walk faster. What tricks the gods play! Have you a weapon, my child?”
Nettle shook her head; I explained that she had brought a needler from the airship but had given it to me, and offered to return it to her.
“Keep it. Keep it! You’ll need it when you stand guard.” He turned his head. He had a long and very wrinkled neck that would have betrayed his true nature at once had I known then of the hooded inhumi. As it was, I was suddenly frightened because there was nothing of warmth or kindness in his look. It was as though I were seeing a mask, or the features of a corpse propped erect. He said, “You won’t shoot me, will you?”
Naturally I assured him that I would not.
“Because I’ll walk. I always do. They see me around the Palace all night long. They say it’s my spirit, that I step out of my skin and walk all night. Do you believe it, my child?”
Nettle nodded. “If Your Cognizance says so.”
“I don’t.” I had the impression that he was leaning most of his weight upon my shoulder, yet he was certainly not heavy. “Never believe such stuff. I can’t sleep, and so I wander about dazed and tired, that’s all. My son, would you tell those in front to go faster? I haven’t the breath.”
I shouted, “His Cognizance says we must walk faster!” or something of the kind.
“Thank you. Now we can stop. Let the fat woman and her man catch up.” He turned, motioning to them urgently.
Nettle whispered, “We’re in danger down here. We must be, or he wouldn’t be in such a hurry.”