by Gene Wolfe
Two insights came to Silk simultaneously. The first was that Villus might easily fire by accident, killing Musk. The second, that he, Silk, did not care.
Musk's thumb dangled on a rag of flesh, and blood from his hand mingled with the white bull's. Still trying to comprehend the situation, Silk asked, "He sent you to do this, didn't he?" He pictured the flushed, perspiring face of Musk's employer vividly, although at that moment he could not recall his name.
Musk spat thick, yellow phlegm that clung to Silk's robe as Maytera Marble wrestled him toward the altar. Horribly, she bent him over the flames. Musk spat again, this time into her face, and struggled with such desperate strength that she was lifted off her feet.
Villus asked, "Should I shoot him, Maytera?" When she did not answer, Silk shook his head.
"This fine and living man," she pronounced slowly, "is presented to me, to Divine Echidna." Her hands, the bony blue-veined hands of a elderly bio, glowed crimson in the flames. "Mother of the Gods. Incomparable Echidna, Queen of the Whorl. Fair Echidna! Smile upon us. Send us beasts for the chase. Great Echidna! Put forth thy green grass for our kine…"
Musk moaned. His tunic was smoking; his eyes seemed ready to start from their sockets.
An old woman tittered.
Surprised, Silk looked for her and from her death's-head grin knew who watched through her eyes. "Go home, Mucor."
The old woman tittered again.
"Divine Echidna!" Maytera Marble concluded. "By fire set us free."
"Release him, Echidna," Silk snapped.
Musk's silk tunic was burning; so were Maytera Marble's sleeves.
"Release him!"
The perverse self-forged discipline of the Orilla broke at last; Musk screamed and continued to scream, each pause and gasp followed by a scream weaker and more terrible. To Silk, tugging futilely at Maytera Marble's relentless arms, those screams seemed the creakings of the wings of death, of the black wings of High Hierax as he flapped down the whorl from Mainframe at the East Pole.
Musk's needler spoke twice, so rapidly it seemed almost to stammer. Its needles scarred Maytera Marble's cheek and chin, and fled whimpering into the sky.
"Don't," Silk told Villus. "You might hit me. It won't do any good."
Villus started, then stared down in astonishment at the dusty black viper that had fastened upon his ankle.
"Don't run," Silk told him, and turned to come to his aid, thereby saving himself. A larger viper pushed its blunt head from Maytera Marble's collar to strike at his neck, missing by two fingers' width.
He jerked the first viper off Villus's ankle and flung it to one side, crouching to mark the punctures made by its fangs with the sign of addition, executed in shallow incisions with the point of the sacrificial knife. "Lie down and stay quiet," he told Villus. When Villus did, he applied his lips to the bleeding crosses.
Musk's screams ceased, and Maytera Marble faced them, her blazing habit slipping from her narrow shoulders; in each hand she brandished a viper. "I have summoned these children to me from the alleys and gardens of this treacherous city. Do you not know who I am?"
The familiarity of her voice left Silk feeling that he had gone mad. He spat a mouthful of blood.
"The boy is mine. I claim him. Give him to me."
Silk spat a second time and picked up Villus, cradling him in his arms. "None but the most flawless may be offered to the gods. This boy has been bitten by a poisonous snake and so is clearly unsuitable."
Twice Maytera Marble waved a viper before her face as if whisking away a fly. "Are you to judge that? Or am I?" Her burning habit fell to her feet.
Silk held out Villus. "Tell me why Pas is angry with us, O Great Echidna."
She reached for him, saw the viper she held as if for the first time, and raised it again. "Pas is dead and you a fool. Give me Auk."
"This boy's name is Villus," Silk told her. "Auk was a boy like this about twenty years ago, I suppose." When she said nothing more, he added, "I knew you gods could possess bios like us. I didn't know you could possess chems as well."
Echidna whisked the writhing viper before her face. "They are easier what mean these numbers? Why should we let you…? My husband…"
"Did Pas possess someone who died?"
Her head swiveled toward the Sacred Window. "The prime calcula… His citadel."
"Get away from that fire," Silk told her, but it was too late. Her knees would no longer support her; she crumpled onto her burning habit, seeming to shrink as she fell.
He laid Villus down and drew Hyacinth's needler. His first shot took a viper behind the head, and he congratulated himself; but the other escaped, lost in the scorching yellow dust of Sun Street.
"You're to forget everything you just overheard," he told Villus as he dropped Hyacinth's needler back into his pocket.
"I didn't understand anyway, Patera." Villus was sitting up, hands tight around his bitten leg.
"That's well." Silk pulled her burning habit from under Maytera Marble.
The old woman tittered. "I could kill you, Silk." She was holding the needler that had been Musk's much as Villus had, and aiming it at Silk's chest. "There's councillors at our house now. They'd like that."
The toothless old man slapped the needler from her hand with his dripping slab of raw beef, saying sharply, "Don't, Mucor!" He put his foot on the needler.
As Silk stared, he fished a gammadion blazing with gems from beneath his threadbare brown tunic. "I ought to have made my presence known earlier, Patera, but I'd hoped to do it in private. I'm an augur too, as you see. I'm Patera Quetzal."
Auk stopped and looked back at the last of the bleared green lights. It was like leaving the city, he thought. You hated it-hated its nasty ugly ways, its noise and smoke and most of all its shaggy shitty itch for gelt, gelt for this and gelt for that until a man couldn't fart without paying. But when you rode away from it with the dark closing in on you and skylands you never noticed much in the city sort of floating around up there, you missed it right away and pulled up to look back at it from just about any place you could. All those tiny lights so far away, looking just like the lowest skylands after the market closed, over where it was night already.
From the black darkness ahead, Dace called, "You comin'?"
"Yeah. Don't get the wind up, old man."
He still held the arrow someone had shot at Chenille; its shaft was bone, not wood. A couple long strips of bone, Auk decided, running his fingers along it for the tenth or twelfth time, scarfed and glued together, most likely strips from the shin bone of a big animal or maybe even a big man. The nock end was fletched with feathers of bone, but the wicked barbed point was hammered metal. Country people hunted with arrows and bows, he had heard, and you saw arrows in the market. But not arrows like this.
He snapped it between his hands and let the pieces fall, then hurried down the tunnel after Dace. "Where's Jugs?"
"Up front ag'in with the sojer." Dace sounded as though he was still some distance ahead.
"Well, by Hierax! They almost got her the first time."
"They very nearly killed me." Incus's voice floated back through the darkness. "Have you forgotten that?"
"No," Auk told him, "only it don't bother me as much."
"No care," Oreb confirmed from Auk's shoulder.
Incus giggled. "Nor do you bother me, Auk. When I sent Corporal Hammerstone ahead of us, my first thought was that you would have to accompany him. Then I realized that there was no harm in your lagging behind. Hammerstone's task is not to nurse you, but to protect me from your brutal treatment."
"And thresh me out whenever you decide I need it."
"Indeed. Oh, indeed. But mercy and forbearance are much dearer to the immortal gods than sacrifice, Auk. If you wish to stay where you are, I will not seek to prevent you. Neither will my tall friend, who is, as we have seen, so much stronger than yourself."
"Chenille ain't stronger than me, not even now. I doubt she's much stronger than yo
u."
"But she possesses the best weapon. She insisted for that reason. For my own part, I was glad to have her and her weapon near the redoubtable corporal, and remote from yourself."
Auk kicked himself mentally for having failed to realize that the launcher Chenille carried would flatten Hammerstone as effectively as any slug gun. Bitterly he mumbled, "Always thinking, ain't you."
"You refuse to call me Patera, Auk? Even now, you refuse me my title of respect?"
Auk felt weak and dizzy, afraid for Chenille and even for himself; but he managed to say, "It's supposed to mean you're my father, like Maytera meant this teacher I used to have was my mother. Anytime you start acting like a father, I'll call you that."
Incus giggled again. "We fathers are expected to curb the violent behavior of our offspring, and to teach them-I do hope you'll excuse a trifling bit of vulgarity-to teach them to wipe their dirty, snotty little noses."
Auk drew his hanger; it felt unaccustomedly heavy in his hand, but the weight and the cold, hard metal of the hilt were reassuring. Hoarsely, Oreb advised, "No, no!"
Incus, having heard the hiss of the blade as it cleared the scabbard, called, "Corporal!"
Hammerstone's voice came from a distance, echoing through the tunnel. "Right here, Patera. I started dropping back as soon as I heard you and him talking."
"Hammerstone has no light, I fear. He tells me he lost it when he was shot. But he can see in the dark better than we, Auk. Better than any biological person, in fact."
Auk, who could see nothing in the pitch blackness, said, "I got eyes like a cat."
"Do you really. What have I in my hand, in that case?"
"My needler." Auk sniffed; there was a faint stench, as though someone were cooking with rancid fat.
"You're guessing." Hammerstone sounded closer. "You can't see Patera's needler 'cause he's not holding it. You can't see my slug gun either, but I see you and I got it aimed at you. Try to stick Patera with that thing, and I'll shoot you. Put it up or I'll take it away from you and bust it."
Faintly, Auk heard the big soldier's rapid steps. He was running, or at least trotting.
"Bird see," the night chough muttered in Auk's ear.
"You don't have to do that," Auk told Hammerstone. "I'm putting it up." To Oreb he whispered, "Where is he?"
"Come back."
"Yeah, I know. Is he as close as that shaggy butcher?"
"Near men. Men wait."
Auk called, "Hammerstone! Stop. Watch out!"
The running steps halted. "This better be good."
"How many men, bird?"
"Many." The night chough's bill clacked nervously. "Gods too. Bad gods!"
"Hammerstone, listen up! You can't see much better'n Patera. I know that."
"Spit oil!"
"Only I can. Between you and him, there's a bunch of culls, waiting quiet up against the wall. They got-"
The sound that filled the tunnel was half snarl and half howl. It was followed by a boom from Hammerstone's slug gun, and the ring of a hard blow on metal.
"Hit head," Oreb explained, and elaborated, "Iron man."
Hammerstone fired twice in quick succession, the echoing thunder succeeded by a series of hard, flat reports and the tortured shriekings of ricocheting needles.
"Get down!" Auk reached for a place where he thought Dace might be, but his hand met only air.
A scream. Auk shouted, "I'm coming, Jugs!" and found that he was running already, sprinting sightless through darkness thicker than the darkest night, his hanger blade probing the blackness before him like a beggar's white stick.
Oreb flapped overhead. "Man here!"
Auk slashed wildly again and again, half crouched, still advancing, his left hand groping frantically for the knife in his boot. His blade struck something hard that was not the wall, then bit deep into flesh. Someone who was not Chenille yelped with pain and surprise.
Hammerstone's slug gun boomed, close enough that the flash lit the vicinity like lightning: a naked skeletal figure reeled backward with half its face gone. Auk slashed again and again and again. The third slash met no resistance.
"Man dead!" Oreb announced excitedly. "Cut good!"
"Auk! Auk, help me! Help!"
"I'm coming!"
"Watch out!" Oreb warned, sotto voce. "Iron man."
"Get outta my way, Hammerstone!"
From his left, Oreb croaked, "Come Auk."
His blade rang upon metal. He ducked, certain Hammerstone would swing at him. Then he was past, and Oreb exclaiming from some distance, "Here girl! Here Auk! Big fight!"
"Auk! Get him off me!"
A new voice nearly as harsh as Oreb's demanded, "Auk? Auk from the Cock?"
"Shag yes!"
"Pas piss. Wait a minute."
Auk halted. "Jugs, you all right?"
There was no reply.
Someone moaned, and Hammerstone fired again. Auk yelled, "Don't fight unless they do, anybody. Old man, where are you?"
His own fighting frenzy had drained away, leaving him weaker and sicker than ever. "Jugs?"
Oreb seconded him. "Girl say. All right? No die?"
"No! I'm not all right." Chenille gasped for breath. "He hit me with something, Auk. He knocked me down and tried to… You know. Get it free. I'm pretty beat up, but I'm still alive, I guess."
The darkness faded, as sudden as shadeup and as faint. A dozen stades along the tunnel, one of the crawling lights was slowly rounding a corner. As Auk watched fascinated, it came into full view, a gleaming pinprick that rendered plain all that had been concealed.
Chenille was sitting up some distance away. Seeing Auk, the naked, starved-looking man standing over her raised both hands and backed off. Auk went to her and tried to help her up, discovering (just as Silk had a moment before) that his hand was encumbered by his knife. Gritting his teeth against pain that seemed about to tear his head to bits, he stooped and returned the knife to his boot.
"He grabbed my launcher in the dark. Hit me with a club or something."
Examining her scalp in the dim light, Auk decided the dark splotch was a bleeding bruise. "You're shaggy lucky he didn't kill you."
The naked man smirked. "I could of. I wasn't tryin' to."
"I ought to kill you," Auk told him. "I think I will. Go get your launcher, Jugs."
Behind Auk, Incus said, "He intended to take her by force, I dare say. I warned her on that very point. To force any woman is wrong, my son. To force yourself upon a prophetess-" Striding forward, the little augur leveled Auk's big needler. "I too am of half a mind to kill you, for Scylla's sake.
"Patera got both gods," Hammerstone announced proudly. "A couple of you meatheads, too."
"Wait up, Patera. We got to talk to him." Auk indicated the naked man by a jab of his gory hanger. "What's your name?"
"Urus. Look, Auk, we used to be a dimber knot. Remember that sweatin' ken? You went in through the back while I kept the street for you."
"Yeah. I remember you. You got the pits. That was-" Auk tried to think, but found only pain.
"Only a couple months ago, 'n I got lucky." Urus edged closer, hands supplicating. "If I'd of knowed it was you, Auk, this whole lay would of gone different. We'd of helped you, me 'n my crew. Only I never had no way to know, see? This cully Gelada, all he said was her 'n him." He indicated Chenille and Incus by quick gestures. "A tall piece out of the piece pit 'n a runt cull with her, see, Auk? He never said nothin' about no sojer. Nothin' about you. Soon's I twigged the sojer walkin', I was fit to beat hoof, only by then he was goin' back."
Chenille began, "How come-"
"Because you ain't got anything on, Jugs." Auk sighed. "They take their clothes before they shove 'em in. I thought everybody knew that. Sit down. You too, Patera, Hammerstone. Old man, you coming?"
Oreb added his own throaty summons. "Old man!"
There was no reply from the ebbing darkness.
"Sit down," Auk told them again. "We're all tired out-shaggy Hi
erax knows I am-and we've probably got a long way to go before we find dinner or a place to sleep. I got a few questions for Urus here. Most likely the rest of you got some too."
"I do, certainly."
"All right, you'll get your chance." Auk seated himself gingerly on the cold floor of the tunnel. "First, I ought to tell you that what he said's lily, but it don't mean a lot. I know maybe a hundred culls I can trust a little, only not too much. Before they threw him in the pits, he used to be one of 'em, and that's all it ever was."
Incus and Hammerstone had sat down together as he spoke; cautiously, Urus sat, too, after receiving a permissive nod.
Auk leaned back, his eyes shut and his head spinning. "I said everybody'd get their chance. I only got this one first, then the rest of you can go ahead. Where's Dace, Urus?"
"Who's that?"
"The old man. We had a old man with us, a fisherman. His name's Dace. You do for him?"
"I didn't do for anybody." Urus might have been a league away. Hammerstone's voice: "Why'd they throw you in the pit?" Chenille's: "That doesn't matter now. What are you doing here, that's what I want to know. You're supposed to be in a pit, and you thought I'd been in one. Was it no clothes, like Auk said?" Incus: "My son, I have been considering this. You could hardly have foreseen that I, an augur, would be armed." "I didn't even know you was one. That cully Gelada, he said there was this long mort, and a little cull with her. That's all we knew when we started pullin' lights down." "It was this Gelada who shot the bone arrow at me, I take it." "Not at you, Patera. At her. She had a launcher, he said, so he shot, only he missed. He's got this bow pasted up out of bones, only he's not as good with it as he thinks. Auk, all I want's to get out, see? You take me up, anyplace, 'n that's it. I'll do anythin' you say."
"I was wondering," Auk murmured.
Incus: "I fired twenty times at least. There were beastly animals, and men as well." Chenille: "You could've killed all of us, you know that? Just shooting Auk's needler like that in the dark. That was abram." Hammerstone: "Not me." "If I had not, my daughter, I might very well have died myself. Nor was I firing at random. I knew! Though I might as well have been blind. That was wonderful. Truly miraculous. Scylla must have been at my side. They rushed upon me to kill me, all of them, but I killed them instead."