by Gene Wolfe
He woke with a start, shaking. Something warm lay beside him, dose but not quite touching. He rolled over, bringing his legs up under her big soft thighs, his chest against her back, an arm around her to warm her and it, cupping her breast. "By Kypris, I love you, Jugs I'm too sick to shag you, but I love you. You're all the woman I'll ever want."
She didn't talk, but there'd been a little change in her breathing, so he knew she wasn't asleep even if she wanted him to think so. That was dimber by him, she wanted to look at it and he didn't blame her, wouldn't want a woman who wouldn't look because a woman like that got you nabbed sooner or later even if she didn't mean to.
Only he'd looked at it already, had looked all that he'd ever need to while he was rolling over. And he slept beside her quite content.
"I shocked you, Patera Caldé. I know I did. I could see it in your face. My eyes aren't what they were, I'm afraid. I'm no longer good at reading expressions. But I read yours."
"Somewhat, Your Cognizance." Together, they were walking up a deserted Sun Street, a tall young augur and a stooped old one side-by-side, Silk taking a slow step for two of Quetzal's lame and unsteady ones.
"Since you left the schola, Patera Caldé, since you came to this quarter, you've prayed that a god would come to your Window, haven't you? I feel sure you have. All of you do, or nearly all. Who did you hope for? Pas or Scylla?"
"Scylla chiefly, Your Cognizance. To tell the truth, I scarcely thought about the minor gods then. I mean the gods outside the Nine-no god is truly minor, I suppose. Scylla seemed the most probable. It was only on Scylsdays that we had a victim, for one thing; and she's the patroness of the city, after all."
"She'd tell you what to do, which was what you wanted." Quetzal squinted up at Silk with a toothless smile he found disconcerting. "She'd fill your cash box, too. You could fix up those old buildings, buy books for your palaestra, and sacrifice in the grand style every day."
Reluctantly, Silk nodded.
"I understand. Oh, I understand. It's perfectly normal, Patera Caldé. Even commendable. But what about me? What about me, not wanting gods to come at all? That isn't, is it? It isn't, and it's bothering you."
Silk shook his head. "It's not my place to judge your acts or your words, Your Cognizance."
"Yet you will." Quetzal paused to peer along Lamp Street, and seemed to listen. "You will, Patera Caldé. You can't help it. That's why I've got to tell you. After that, we're going to talk about something you probably think that you learned all about when you were a baby. I mean the Plan of Pas. Then you can go off to Maytera what'shername."
"Mint, Your Cognizance.
"You can go off to help her overthrow the Ayuntamiento for Echidna, and I'll be going off to find you more people to do it with, and better weapons. To begin-"
"Your Cognizance?" Silk ran nervous fingers through his haystack hair, unable to restrain himself any longer. "Your Cognizance, did you know Great Pas was dead? Did you know it already, before she told us today?"
"Certainly. We can start there, Patera Caldé, if that's troubling you. Would you have talked about it from the ambion of the Grand Manteion if you'd been in my place? Made a public announcement? Conducted ceremonies of mourning and so forth?"
"Yes," Silk said firmly. "Yes, I would."
"I see. What do you suppose killed him, Patera Caldé? You're an intelligent young fellow. You studied hard at the schola, I know. Your instructors' reports are very favorable. How could the Father of the Gods die?"
Faintly, Silk could hear the booming of slug guns, then a long, concerted roar that might almost have been thunder.
"Building falling," Quetzal told him. "Don't worry about that now. Answer my question."
"I can't conceive of such a thing, Your Cognizance. The gods are immortal, ageless. It's their immortality that makes them gods, really, more than anything else."
"A fever," Quetzal suggested. "We mortals die of fevers every day. Perhaps he caught a fever?"
"The gods are spiritual beings, Your Cognizance. They're not subject to disease."
"Kicked in the head by a horse. Don't you think that could have been it?"
Silk did not reply.
"I'm mocking you, Patera Caldé, of course I am. But not idly. My question's perfectly serious. Echidna told you Pas is dead, and you can't help believing her. I've known it for thirty years, since shortly after his death, in fact. How did he die? How could he?"
Silk combed his disorderly yellow hair with his fingers again.
"When I was made Prolocutor, Patera Caldé, we had a vase at the Palace that had been thrown on the Short Sun Whorl, a beautiful thing. They told me it was five hundred years old. Almost inconceivable. Do you agree?"
"And priceless, I would say, Your Cognizance."
"Lemur wanted to frighten me, to show me how ruthless he could be. I already knew, but he didn't know I did. I think he thought that if I did I'd never dare oppose him. He took that vase from its stand and smashed it at my feet."
Silk stared down at Quetzal. "You-you're serious, Your Cognizance? He actually did that?"
"He did. Look, now. That vase was immortal. It didn't age. It was proof against disease. But it could be destroyed, as it was. So could Pas. He couldn't age, or even fall sick. But he could be destroyed, and he was. He was murdered by his family. Many men die like that, Patera Caldé. When you're half my age, you'll know it. Now a god has, too."
"But, Your Cognizance…"
"Viron's isolated, Patera Caldé. All the cities are. He gave us floaters and animals. No big machines that could carry heavy loads. He thought that would be best for us, and I dare say he was right. But the Ayuntamiento's not isolated. The Caldé wasn't either, when we had one. Did you think he was?"
Silk said, "I realize we have diplomats, Your Cognizance, and there are traveling traders and so forth-boats on the rivers, and even spies."
"That's right. As Prolocutor, I'm no more isolated than he was. Less, but I won't try to prove that. I'm in contact with religious leaders in Urbs, Wick, and other cities, cities where his children have boasted of killing Pas."
"It was the Seven, then, Your Cognizance? Not Echidna? Was Scylla involved?"
Quetzal had found prayer beads in a pocket of Gulo's robe; he ran them through his fingers. "Echidna was at the center. You've seen her, can you doubt it? Scylla, Molpe, and Hierax were in it. They've said so at various times."
"But not Tartaros, Thelxiepeia, Phaea, or Sphigx, Your Cognizance?" Silk felt an irrational surge of hope.
"I don't know about Tartaros and the younger gods, Patera Caldé. But do you see why I didn't announce it? There would have been panic. There will be, if it becomes widely known. The Chapter will be destroyed and the basis of morality gone. Imagine Viron with neither. As for public observances, how do you think Pas's murderers would react to our mourning him?"
"We-" Something tightened in Silk's throat. "We, you and I, Your Cognizance. Villus and Maytera Marble, all of us are-were his children too. That is to say, he built the whorl for us. Ruled us like a father. I…"
"What is it, Patera Caldé?"
"I just remembered something, Your Cognizance. Kypris-you must know there was a theophany of Kypris at our manteion on Scylsday."
"I've had a dozen reports. It's the talk of the city."
"She said she was hunted, and I didn't understand. Now I believe I may."
Quetzal nodded. "I imagine she is. The wonder is that they haven't been able to corner her in thirty years. She can't be a tenth as strong as Pas was. But it can't be easy to kill even a minor goddess who knows you're trying to. Not like killing a husband and father who trusts you. Now you see why I've tried to prevent theophanies, don't you, Patera Caldé? If you don't, I'll never be able to make it clear."
"Yes, Your Cognizance. Of course. It's-horrible. Unspeakable. But you were right. You are right."
"I'm glad you realize it. You understand why we go on sacrificing to Pas? We must. I've tried to downgrade him somew
hat. Make him seem more remote than he used to. I've emphasized Scylla at his expense, but you're too young to have realized that. Older people complain, sometimes."
Silk said nothing, but stroked his cheek as he walked.
"You have questions, Patera Caldé. Or you will have when you've digested all this. Don't fear you may offend me. I'm at your disposal whenever you want to question me."
"I have two," Silk told him. "I hesitate to pose the first, which verges upon blasphemy."
"Many necessary questions do." Quetzal cocked his head. "This isn't one, but do you hear horses?"
"Horses, Your Cognizance? No."
"I must be imagining it. What are your questions?"
Silk walked on in silence for a few seconds to collect his thoughts. At length he said, "My original two questions have become three, Your Cognizance. The first, for which I apologize in advance, is, isn't it true that Echidna and the Seven love us just as Pas did? I've always felt, somehow, that Pas loved them, while they love us; and if that is so, will his death-terrible though it is-make a great deal of difference to us?"
"You have a pet bird, Patera Caldé. I've never seen it, but so I've been told."
"I had one, Your Cognizance, a night chough. I've lost him, I'm afraid, although it may be that he's with a friend. I'm hoping he'll return to me eventually."
"You should have caged him, Patera Caldé. Then you'd still have him."
"I liked him too much for that, Your Cognizance."
Quetzal's small head bobbed upon its long neck. "Just so. There are people who love birds so much they free them. There are others who love them so much they cage them. Pas's love of us was of the first kind. Echidna's and the Seven's is of the other. Were you going to ask why they killed Pas? Is that one of your questions?"
Silk nodded, "My second, Your Cognizance."
"I've answered it. What's the third?"
"You indicated that you wished to discuss the Plan of Pas with me, Your Cognizance. If Pas is dead, what's the point of discussing his plan?"
Hoofbeats sounded faintly behind them.
"A god's plans do not die with him, Patera Caldé. He is dead, as Serpentine Echidna told us. We are not. We were to carry Pas's plan out. You said he ruled us as a father. Do a father's plans benefit him? Or his children?"
"Your Cognizance, I just remembered something? Another god, the Outsider-"
"Pateras!" The horseman, a lieutenant of the Civil Guard in mottled green conflict armor, pushed up his visor. "Are you-you there, Patera. The young one. Aren't you Patera Silk?"
"Yes, my son," Silk said. "I am."
The lieutenant dropped the reins. His hand appeared slow as it jerked his needler from the holster, yet it was much too quick to permit Silk to draw Musk's needler. The flat crack of the shot sounded an instant after the needle's stinging blow.
Chapter 5
Mail
They had insisted she not look for herself, that she send one of them to do it, but she felt she had already sent too many others. This time she would see the enemy for herself, and she had forbidden them to attend her. She straightened her snowy coif as she walked, and held down the wind-tossed skirt of her habit-a sibyl smaller and younger than most, gowned (like all sibyls) in black to the tops of her worn black shoes, out upon some holy errand, and remarkable only for being alone.
The azoth was in one capacious pocket, her beads in the other; she got them out as she went around the corner onto Cage Street, wooden beads twice the size of those Quetzal fingered, smoothed and oiled by her touch to glossy chestnut.
First, Pas's gammadion: "Great Pas, Designer and Creator of the Whorl, Lord Guardian of the Aureate Path, we-"
The pronoun should have been I, but she was used to saying them with Maytera Rose and Maytera Marble; and they, praying together in the sellaria of the cenoby, had quite properly said "we." She thought: But I'm praying for all of us. For all who may die this afternoon, for Bison and Patera Gulo and Bream and that man who let me borrow his sword. For the volunteers who'll ride with me in a minute, and Patera Silk and Lime and Zoril and the children. Particularly for the children. For all of us, Great Pas.
"We acknowledge you the supreme and sovereign…"
And there it was, an armored floater with all its hatches down turning onto Cage Street. Then another, and a third. A good big space between the third and the first rank of marching Guardsmen because of the dust. A mounted officer riding beside his troopers. The soldiers would be in back (that was what the messenger had reported) but there was no time to wait until they came into view, though the soldiers would be the worst of all, worse even than the floaters.
Beads forgotten, she hurried back the way she had come.
Scleroderma was still there, holding the white stallion's reins. "I'm coming too, Maytera. On these two legs since you won't let me have a horse, but I'm coming. You're going, and I'm bigger than you."
Which was true. Scleroderma was no taller, but twice as wide. "Shout," she told her. "You're blessed with a good, loud voice. Shout and make all the noise you can. If you can keep them from seeing Bison's people for one second more, that may decide it."
A giant with a gape-toothed grin knelt, hands clasped to help her mount; she put her left foot in them and swung into the saddle, and although she sat a tall horse, the giant's head was level with her own. She had chosen him for his size and ferocious appearance. (Distraction-distraction would be everything). Now it struck her that she did not know his name. "Can you ride?" she asked. "If you can't, say so."
"Sure can, Maytera."
He was probably lying; but it was too late, too late to quiz him or get somebody else. She rose in her stirrups to consider the five riders behind her, and the giant's riderless horse. "Most of us will be killed, and it's quite likely that all of us will be."
The first floater would be well along Cage Street already, halted perhaps before the doors of the Alambrera; but if they were to succeed, their diversion would have to wait until the marching men behind the third floater had closed the gap. It might be best to fill the time.
"Should one of us live, however, it would be well for him-or her-to know the names of those who gave their lives. Scleroderma, I can't count you among us, but you are the most likely to live. Listen carefully."
Scleroderma nodded, her pudgy face pale.
"All of you. Listen, and try to remember."
The fear she had shut out so effectively was seeping back now. She bit her lip; her voice must not quaver. "I'm Maytera Mint, from the Sun Street manteion. But you know that. You," she pointed to the rearmost rider. "Give us your name, and say it loudly."
"Babirousa!"
"Good. And you?"
"Goral!"
"Kingcup!" The woman who had supplied horses for the rest.
"Yapok!"
"Marmot!"
"Gib from the Cock," the giant grunted, and mounted in a way that showed he was more accustomed to riding donkeys.
"I wish we had horns and war drums," Maytera Mint told them. "We'll have to use our voices and our weapons instead. Remember, the idea is to keep them, the crews of the floaters especially, looking and shooting at us for as long as we can."
The fear filled her mind, horrible and colder than ice; she felt sure her trembling fingers would drop Patera Silk's azoth if she tried to take it from her pocket; but she got it out anyway, telling herself that it would be preferable to drop it here, where Scleroderma could hand it back to her.
Scleroderma handed her the reins instead.
"You have all volunteered, and there is no disgrace in reconsidering. Those who wish may leave." Deliberately she faced forward, so that she would not see who dismounted.
At once she felt that there was no one behind her at all. She groped for something that would drive out the fear, and came upon a naked woman with yellow hair-a wild-eyed fury who was not herself at all-wielding a scourge whose lashes cut and tore the gray sickness until it fled her mind.
Perhaps becau
se she had urged him forward with her heels, perhaps only because she had loosed his reins, the stallion was rounding the corner at an easy canter. There, still streets ahead though not so far as they had been, were the floaters, the third settling onto the rutted street, with the marching troopers closing behind it.
"For Echidna!" she shouted. "The gods will it!" Still she wished for war drums and horns, unaware that the drumming hooves echoed and re-echoed from each shiprock wall, that her trumpet had shaken the street. "Silk is Caldé!"
She jammed her sharp little heels in the stallion's sides. Fear was gone, replaced by soaring joy. "Silk is Caldé!" At her right the giant was firing two needlers as fast as he could pull their triggers.
"Down the Ayuntamiento! Silk is Caldé!"
The shimmering horror that was the azoth's blade could not be held on the foremost floater. Not by her, certainly not at this headlong gallop. Slashed twice across, the floater wept silvery metal as the street before it erupted in boiling dust and stones exploded from the gray walls of the Alambrera.
Abruptly, Yapok was on her right. To her left, Kingcup flailed a leggy bay with a long brown whip, Yapok bellowing obscenities, Kingcup shrieking curses, a nightmare witch, her loosed black hair streaming behind her.
The blade again, and the foremost floater burst in a ball of orange flame. Behind it, the buzz guns of the second were firing, the flashes from their muzzle mere sparks, the rattle of their shots lost in pandemonium. "Form up," she shouted, not knowing what she meant by it. Then, "Forward! Forward!"
Thousands of armed men and women were pouring from the buildings, crowding through doorways and leaping from windows. Yapok was gone, Kingcup somehow in front of her by half a length. Unseen hands snatched off her coif and plucked one flapping black sleeve.
The shimmering blade brought a gush of silver from the second floater, and there were no more flashes from its guns, only an explosion that blew off the turret-and a rain of stones upon the second floater, the third, and the Guardsmen behind it, and lines of slug guns booming from rooftops and high windows. But not enough, she thought. Not nearly enough, we must have more.