by Gene Wolfe
Her mouth full, Maytera Mint shook her head.
"If you went along the big one we turned off of," Spider jerked his thumb at the door, "far enough, you could get clean to the skylands, maybe. I don't know anybody that ever tried it, but that's what Councillor Potto said one time. You can be way out in the sticks where there isn't any houses or anythin', nothin' but trees and bushes, and maybe there's one right under you. Could be a hundred cubits down or so close you'd hit it puttin' in a fence post."
Hoping her face did not betray the skepticism she felt, she said, "The labor involved must have been incredible."
"Pas built them. It's queer, tellin' you two that. You ought to tell me. But he did. He did it when he was buildin' the whorl, so it wasn't as bad as you'd figure."
The wine returned to Spider, who drank and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "His boys did the real work, accordin' to the councillor. When we say Pas made it, it just means he had the idea and ran the job."
"His divine-ah-puissance animated his servants."
"If you say so. But there was a lot, see? He wanted the job done fast. Mind if I have a little of that?"
Spider took two strips of dried meat from Maytera Mint's lap. "I'm with him there, I'm the same way. You got a job to do, you do it. Wrap it up and tie the string. Let one drag, and somethin' always goes queer." He bit through both strips.
"If they were indeed constructed by Pas, it must have been for some good reason. It's one of the paradoxes of isagogics-" Maytera Mint looked to Remora for permission to speak on learned and holy topics, and received it. "That Pas, with all power at his disposal, squanders none. He never acts without a purpose, and educes a multitude of benefits from a single action."
She paused, inviting contradiction. "We sibyls don't go to the schola, but we receive some education as postulants, and we read, of course. We can also question our augurs if we wish, though I confess I've seldom done so."
"All-ah-admirably correct, Maytera. General."
Spider nodded. "Councillor Potto said somethin' like that about the tunnels. We were talkin' about when they got built."
"I'd like to hear it."
"It was while they were buildin' the whorl, like I said. To start it was just a big hunk of rock. You know that?"
"Certainly. The Chrasmologic Writings emphasize it."
"So how could they get in and get the rock out? They dug a bunch of tunnels. Then they had to haul in dirt and trees, and pretty soon a big cart would come out and it'd be tearin' up stuff they just planted. These tunnels are shiprock in lots of places, especially high up. You twig that?"
"Most have been, I believe. Nearly all."
"All right. They made those before they brought in dirt, see? Up on the surface, only it was bare rock then, and now that's maybe ten, twenty cubits down. They set those stretches up and shoveled dirt around them. Then they could cart in more, and the trees, without tearin' up what they'd already finished."
Maytera Mint swallowed bread. "But the deeper tunnels are bored through stone? That's how our Caldé described them."
"Sure, that's how they got the rock out. Look up at the skylands next time you're out in the open. Look at how much room there is, just clouds and air, and the sun and the shade, all right? What's a few tunnels compared to that?"
Remora nodded vigorously. "'How mighty are the works of Pas!' The, er, initial line of the Chrasmologic Writings, eh? Therefore known to-ah-all. Even laymen. We clergy, um, prone to forget."
"He pumped water through them too," Spider continued. "You take the lake. That's a shaggy lot of water. Think if old Pas had to bring it in barrels. So for the little stuff, he just run pipes down the tunnels, but for big ones like the lake, he put in doors to keep the water out of the ones he wanted to stay dry, and pumped. I could show you a cave by the lake with one of those doors in the back. That's where Pas pumped in water to fill the lake, and he put in that door 'cause he didn't want the water to wash back into his tunnels when he was done. That cave used to be under the water when the lake was bigger."
Spider fell silent, and Maytera Mint remarked, "Something's troubling you."
"I was just thinkin' about a couple things. I told you this side one ends in dirt, and that's where we bury them?"
She nodded.
"There's one of those doors in front of the dirt. I guess the big tunnel was one of them they pumped in, and they didn't want water in it. What we're in now was probably put in after. Anyway, talkin' about doors reminded me we're goin' to have to bury these culls. It'll take a lot of diggin'."
"I had assumed we would," she said. "You indicated there were two points troubling you. May I ask what the second was? And what the other uses of these tunnels are?"
"That's the same question two times." Spider shrugged. "You never asked me why the lake keeps gettin' smaller."
"I didn't suppose you knew, and to tell the truth, I've never thought much about it. The water has gone elsewhere, I suppose. Down into these tunnels, perhaps."
"You couldn't be any wronger about that, General."
Remora put his water bottle on the floor between his feet. "You know, eh? Privy to the, um, information?"
"Yes, I'd like to know, too," Maytera Mint said, "if you don't mind. And I've by no means finished eating yet."
"It's all the same. You wanted to know what else they're good for and somethin' else. I forget."
"The second consideration that troubled you."
"Same thing. The sun shines all the time, don't it?"
"Certainly."
"But we get night half the time 'cause the shade's there. It cools things off, right? When it's hot, you're happy to see the shade come down, 'cause you know it's goin' to get cooler. Wintertime, you don't like it so much."
"Primary. Um, puerile. What-ah-the significance?"
"See this room, Patera? Three doors. Let's say they're all shut. No windows, all right? Now s'pose the sun started at that corner there and run over to that one, about as big as a rope. That's the whorl. That's what it's like, see? Goin' to get pretty hot in here, right?"
"I take your point," Maytera Mint told Spider, "but I do not understand it. The whorl is very large."
"Not that big. It's been goin' for three hundred years and over. That's what they say."
"The, um, fact. Provable in a-ah-many ways."
"Good here, Patera. It had to be hot enough for people to live in when Pas started it, see?"
Neither Remora nor Maytera Mint spoke.
"But it couldn't get much hotter or we'd fry. Couldn't get much hotter with the sun goin' all the time. So there had to be some way to get shut of the heat."
"The-ah-outside, eh? Beyond the whorl. The, um, Writings state, hey? An-uh, um-frigid night."
"You got it. Notice how the wind blows all the time down here? It's cold, too, colder than up top, anyhow."
"I, um, fail-"
Maytera Mint interrupted. "I see! Air circulates through these tunnels, doesn't it, Spider? Some of them must be filled with warm air bound for the night outside. The ones we've been in are carrying cold air back to the surface."
"Bull's-eye, General. Well, it's not workin' as good as it did. You said about lake water goin' in the tunnels."
She nodded.
"Suppose it fills a tunnel half up. The wind can't blow as much, see? If it fills the whole tunnel in just one spot, the wind can't blow at all. There's places where the shiprock gave way, too, and wind can't blow there either. So it's gettin' hotter. We don't notice, 'cause it's too slow. But talk to old people and they'll say winters used to be colder, and longer, too." Spider stood. "I'm goin' to start diggin'. You want to eat more, bring it along."
"I do and I will," Maytera Mint gathered up what remained of her bread and meat, picked up her bottle of water, and rose. The bolt of the outer door clanked back; the shadowy side tunnel beyond was deserted.
"They've gone off," Spider told her over his shoulder. "I'd like to know why they started shootin' at my boy
s."
She sighed. "Because they were Ayuntamientados, I should imagine. Four brave men who had kept Viron secure for years, slain by others who've guarded it for centuries. That's what we've come to."
"Not all, eh?" Remora closed the door behind him. "All the, um. Not, ah, er, fah…" His mouth worked soundlessly.
Maytera Mint looked around at him in some surprise. His eyes seemed to have sunk into his skull, and his nose appeared both thinner and smaller. As she watched, his lips drew back, exposing his big, discolored teeth in a frightful grin. Spider exclaimed, "Sphigx shit!"
"He's not the right one," Remora informed Maytera Mint.
She made herself smile.
"This is the one who talks to the one who's not there. The right one was down here with the tall girl. He might be here."
"This is Mucor," Maytera Mint explained to Spider. "She's Maytera's granddaughter. We've spoken before.
"Do you remember, Mucor? You came to tell me our Caldé was in danger of capture, and I stormed the Palatine. Afterward, we met in person in the Juzgado."
Remora nodded, his head bobbing like a toy's, lank black hair mercifully concealing his terrible eyes. "Incus is his name. A little augur."
"I don't know him, though His Eminence has told me of him. Mucor? Mucor!"
The death-head grin was fading.
"Mucor, come back, please! If you see Bison or our Caldé, tell them-tell either or both-where I am, and that this man is holding us for Councillor Potto."
"You won't be then." The final word was almost too faint to hear. The grin vanished; Remora tossed his hair back as he habitually did, and the eyes his gesture revealed were no longer terrifying. "Not all, hey? Many on our, um, the Caldé's."
When no one spoke, he added, "The general's, hey?"
"You want my needler?" Spider asked Maytera Mint.
"Certainly, if you're willing to let me have it."
He presented it butt first. "You wouldn't shoot me, would you, General? Not with my own needler that I gave you."
She accepted it, glanced at it, and dropped it into one of her habit's side pockets. "No. Only if I were compelled to, and perhaps not even then."
"All right I'm goin' to dig the graves now, see? You two can finish eatin' and watch," Spider stepped out into the empty tunnel, "but if I'm cold 'fore I finish, it's for me. You wrap me and slide me in. Knife's in my pocket."
They followed him down the tunnel until it was blocked by a massive barrier of rusty iron. "Councillor Potto doesn't want anybody to hear," Spider confided, "but I guess it don't matter any more. Fraus!"
For a second or longer, nothing happened.
The great barrier shuddered, creaked, and began to creep upward, rolling unpleasantly into itself. Abruptly, Maytera Mint became conscious of the stench of decay, nauseous yet so diffuse that she might almost have believed she imagined it. Remora snorted, sounding surprisingly horse-like, and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
"No fresh air, 'cept when the door's open," Spider remarked as he led them into the dim cul-de-sac the rising barrier had revealed. "It'll air out pretty quick." He stopped to point. "Right here's where the shiprock ends. Have a look."
Maytera Mint advanced to do so, crossing loose earth into which her scuffed black shoes sank. "I'm very glad you let us hear the word for that door. I'd hate to think of our being locked in here, unable to get it open."
"I'm bein' nice to you two so you'll slide me in after it happens. See the rolls of poly?"
"Certainly." She was examining the edge of the shiprock wall. "This is not as thick as I had imagined."
"It's pretty strong, though. There's iron rods in it."
"The-ah-interments." Remora indicated scraps of paper that dotted the sloping earth at the end of the tunnel. "Those, um, are they all?" He counted them silently, his lips twitching. "Eleven in-ah-toto?"
Spider nodded. "Plenty of room left, but we got three in the guardroom, and Paca back in the big tunnel, and me."
"You-ah-depression. A mere, um, state of mind, my son. Emotion, hey?"
"Yes," Maytera Mint agreed heartily. "You mustn't talk as if your death were inevitable, Spider. I mean now, killed by those soldiers. It isn't, and I pray it won't happen."
"That devil you called your sib's granddaughter, General. What'd it say?"
"She is not a devil," Maytera Mint delared firmly. "She is a living girl, one who has been shamefully mistreated."
Spider grunted, picking up a long-handled spade that had lain between two rolls of synthetic.
"This, er, granddaughter, General. An-ah-difficult child?" Remora bit into a strip of dried beef.
Maytera Mint nodded absently, and found herself staring at one of the grim slips of soiled paper. Bending and squinting, she read a name, a date, and a few particulars of the dead man's life. "Is this the most recent one, Spider? The paper seems cleaner than the others."
"Yeah. Last spring."
There was still half a loaf. Deep in thought, she tore away piece after piece, chewing and swallowing slowly, and drank from her bottle.
"I'm about done here." Spider had ceased to dig, leaning on his spade. "Think you two could fetch a cull out for me? Door's not locked."
"I was about to suggest it myself," Maytera Mint told him.
"We-ah-trust, hey? On our honor?"
"I have his needler, Your Eminence. We could go at any time, and I could shoot him if he tried to stop us."
"In that case, um, the circumstances-"
"But he gave it to me, remember? Besides, he knows these tunnels, and we don't."
"Ah-the soldiers."
"I feel certain they'd help up if we could find them, but what if we couldn't? Spider, we'll be happy to bring one of your late friends here for burial. Thank you for your trust in us. It is not misplaced."
He nodded. "Cut off a big hunk of poly. You can lay him on that and drag him, it's real slick. When you get him here, I'll wrap him up in it."
"May I borrow your knife?"
He got it from his pocket and handed it to her, then went back to his digging. Remora held the ends of the smaller roll while she pulled out and slashed free a length twice the height of a man.
As they carried it back to the guardroom, Remora muttered, "You, um, wonders with him, Maytera. I congratulate you."
She shrugged, unconsciously thrusting her hand into her pocket to grasp Spider's needler. "He has no slug gun, Your Eminence, and without one he would be defenseless against the soldiers. He's hoping our presence will make it possible for him to surrender."
"I, ah-" Remora opened the guardroom door and glanced around. Their stools stood in a circle as they had left them, and the three dead men still sprawled on the gritty shiprock floor, untouched. "One can always, eh? Give up? Capitulate. Not, um, that we-"
"One can always raise one's hands and step into full view of the enemy," Maytera Mint told him. "A good many troopers lose their lives doing it. This one nearest the door, I think. If Your Eminence will unfold that synthetic, we can roll him onto it, poor spirit."
"You, er, concerned, eh?" Remora spread the synthetic winding sheet, holding it down with his knees as he wrestled with the dead man's shoulder. "I observed your demeanor in-ah-there. As you ate."
"Puzzled." She forced her gaze away from the dead man's eyes, wishing that it had been possible to roll him so that he lay face down again. "There was fresh earth on the blade of that spade. At least, I think it was fresh, or fairly fresh. Maytera has a little garden back at the cenoby, Your Eminence. I've helped her with it now and then, hoeing, and spading in the spring. I don't think that Spider noticed it."
"I fail to see the, um, import. Someone else, eh? Could be Councillor Potto, another-hum-subordinate."
"I fail to see it too," she told Remora. "Take the other corner, will you?"
Back at the end of the tunnel, Spider had completed the first grave and begun a second. "That's Hyrax." He produced a stump of pencil and a battered notebook. "I'll write, you two cap f
or him."
They knelt. Maytera Mint found herself, rather to her own surprise, clasping the cold hand. If things had been different, she thought, we might have been man and wife, you and I. We must be nearly of an age.
The drone of Remora's prayer reminded her of the singsong voices of children in the classroom, recifing the multiplication table, memorizing prayers for meals, for betrothals, for the dead. Had she taught girls this year? Or boys? She could not remember.
We would have kissed and held hands, and done what men and women do, and I would have borne you a child, perhaps, my own child. But when I met Bison…
"All right, General, let him go. I got to fold this over him." Suddenly Hyrax was no longer a dead man, but a statue or a picture, still visible but blurred and faintly blue through the synthetic.
"His knife." She rose, dusting loose earth from her black skirt by reflex. "You'll need his knife for the paper."
"I already got it. You want to help, Patera? I could do it alone, but it'll be easier with two." They crouched, one on either side, and Spider said, "Lift when I do, see? A-one and a-two and a-three!"
Raising the shrouded corpse to waist level, they slid it into its grave; and he began shovelling earth after it, pausing from time to time to tamp the damp dark face of death with the handle of his spade. He said, "You're wonderin' why we don't dig them down the way you usually do, I guess."
"The, um, papers," Remora ventured. "Stepped upon, eh? Trodden."
"There's that. But mostly it's easier to dig here. Then too, we'd have to walk on the old ones to bury the new ones."
As they were leaving the guardroom with Guan stretched on a fresh sheet of poly, laughter, faint and mad, echoed in the main tunnel. "Wait!" Maytera Mint told Remora. "Did you hear that? You must have!"
He shuddered. "I-ah-possibly."
"Will you do me a favor, Your Eminence?" She did not wait for his assent. "Go back in there and get two packages of that dried meat. One for yourself, and one for me. We can put them in our pockets."
"That-ah-merriment…"
"I have no idea, Your Eminence. I have a feeling, a presentiment, if you will, that we may need food."
"If we-er-never mind." Remora vanished into the guardroom.