by Gene Wolfe
"No, indeed." Silk swirled the pale fluid in his glass. "I really don't need to taste it. No ceremony could mean less." He tasted it nonetheless, and nodded.
"Except these introductions," Bison said unexpectedly, "if the generalissimo's intelligence is as good as I imagine. I'm Colonel Bison, Generalissimo.
"They are not," Siyuf told him, "yet I hear of you, and I receive a description I find accurate." She let the sommelier half fill her wineglass, then waved him away. "You are Mint's chief subordinate. Not long ago you are upon the same footing as many others. Now you are their superior, answerable to her alone. Is it not so?"
"I'm her second in command, yes."
"So well regarded that Caldé Silk closets himself with you before this dinner. I congratulate you."
Siyuf paused, glancing around the table. "There is but one other I do not know. That thin girl beside my Colonel Abanja. She is also of the Caldé's household? Pretty Chenille, you must know her. Tell me."
"Her name's Mucor, and she's Maytera's granddaughter," Chenille explained. "We take care of her."
"This is by adoption, I take it."
Chenille hesitated, then nodded.
"Hello, Mucor. I am Generalissimo Siyuf from Trivigaunte. Are we to hope that you will soon be a fine strong trooper? Or a holy woman like your grandmother?"
Mucor did not reply. The sommelier paused, his bottle poised above her wineglass. Maytera Marble put her left hand over it, and Silk shook his head.
"I see. This is not fortunate. Caldé Silk, you know of my General Saba, and you have heard the names of Colonel Abanja and Major Hadale, also. Will you not tell me of the empty chair at your left? I did not read the little card before sitting.
"Wait!" Siyuf raised her hand. "Let me to guess. Mine is the place of honor. I am your distinguished guest. But in the second is not Generalissimo Oosik as I expect, but another. It is then for someone deserving of exceptional honor, and not one of us, for Crane who saved you from the enemy is now dead."
Surreptitiously, Silk made the sign of addition.
"Tell me if I am right as far as I have gone. If Crane is living and I am wrong, I like to know."
"No, he's dead. I wish it weren't so."
A waiter whose livery differed from the others came in with a tray of hors d'oeuvres; as he set the first small plate before Siyuf, Silk recognized him as Hossaan.
If Siyuf herself had recognized him as well, she gave no indication. "Then Crane must be dismissed. Each officer here was permitted a subordinate. That is our custom, and I think it a good one. For me, Colonel Abanja, for my General Saba is Major Hadale, and for your own generalissimo his son. But there is here also Colonel Bison. Mint herself is not present."
"You're entirely correct," Silk told Siyuf, still studying Hossaan out of the corner of his eye; he handed Maytera Mint's placecard to Siyuf He had invited Bison himself and forgotten to tell him that he could bring a subordinate, but there seemed little point in mentioning it.
"Bird eat?" The hors d'oeuvres included clams from Lake Limna, and Oreb regarded them hungrily
"Of course," Silk told him. "Come down and take whatever you fancy."
Oreb fluttered nervously. "Girl say."
"Me?" Chenille looked up at him. "Why Oreb, how nice! I'm flattered, I really and truly am. I always thought you liked Auk better." She gulped, and Maytera Marble directed a searching glance at her. "Only I don't blame you, because I do too. I'll get a bunch of these, and you can have anything you want, like Patera says." Oreb glided from the chandelier.
Siyuf asked Silk, "He is dead, this Auk?"
Silk shook his head.
"He is not, and so this card," Siyuf held it up, "should be for him. Is that not so? He is alive, you say. But your General Mint is as dead as my Doctor Crane."
Quetzal asked, "Are you sure, Generalissimo? I have good reasons for thinking otherwise."
"You have cut open some sheep."
"Many, I fear."
"A god speaks to us, also. Sublime Sphigx cares more for us than any other city. She alone of the gods speaks to us in our ancient tongue, speaking as we did in my mother's house, and as we speak in mine."
Silk said, "The High Speech of Trivigaunte? I've heard of it, but I don't believe I've ever heard the language itself. Could you say something for us? A prayer or a bit of poetry?"
Siyuf shook her head. "It is not for amusement at dinner parties, Caldé. Instead, I shall say what I set out to say. It is that no other city is so close to its goddess as we. Look at you. You have a goddess, you say. Scylla. Yet your women are slaves. If Scylla cared for you, she would care for them."
Mattak started to protest, but Siyuf raised her voice. "We who are near the heart of Sphigx do not butcher beasts to read her will in offal. Each day we pray to her, and do not tease her with questions but offer sincere praise. When we wish to know a thing, we go and find it out. Your Mint has been shot." She looked at Saba for confirmation, and Saba nodded.
"This is not pleasant," Siyuf continued, "and I would like that I am not the one to say it. She went to treat with the enemy, is that not so?"
From Saba's right, Bison answered, "Yes. It is."
"With a holy man to safeguard. The enemy has killed both. Captured, they say, but I have spoken to their leader, this man Loris, and he cannot produce either." Siyuf waited for someone to contradict her, but no one did.
"Your Mint was of greatest spirit. I would have liked to speak to her. Even a bout with practice swords, this old man to see fair play. All I have heard says plainly that she was of greatest spirit, and I am sure that when she, who had come to talk peace, was made prisoner she would resist. Some fool shot her and her holy man also, a filthy crime. I learned of this after our parade and already I have set our Labor Corps to dig. We will find these tunnels, make a new entrance near the big lake, and soon find one that shall lead us to this Ayuntamiento of Viron. Then Mint will be avenged."
Bison glanced at Silk; Silk nodded, and Bison said, "I must tell you, Generalissimo, that the Caldé and I saw General Mint in his glass before we sat down. The Caldé had a place set for her originally as a sort of signal, I'd say. He wanted to show that we hoped she was still alive."
"That she would return to us soon," Silk added.
"Now that chair," Bison gestured, "is more than a symbol. Caldé Silk got a monitor to show us what it had seen before we questioned it, and it was General Mint, with four other people and some soldiers and animals hurrying along a tunnel. She may join us before the evening's over."
Siyuf pursed her lips. "If your Mint was in the hands of soldiers, is not that the enemy?"
Saba put down her wineglass. "Vironese soldiers protected the Caldé when some private guards tried to kill him, sir. I mentioned that…" Her voice altered and her mouth assumed a ghastly grin. "I found her, Silk. She was in the market. She bought a little animal that talks. She's taking it where they kill them."
Chapter 10
A Life for Pas
Sergeant Sand had scrambled up first. Maytera Mint, exhausted and practically suffocated by the ash that filled the air of the tunnel, thought it strange that it should be large enough to admit his bulky steel body. She had purified the altar of the old manteion on Sun Street many times, and although she told herself that she must surely be mistaken, it seemed to her that its chute had been scarcely half as large as this one.
"These victims, eh?" Remora coughed, eyeing the yearling tunnel gods Eland had taken charge of. "For, hem!, Pas. His-er-ah-ghost?"
Schist nodded. "That's what the Prolocutor says."
"You're saying that Pas is dead." Maytera Mint was by no means sure she believed such a thing possible, still less that it had taken place. "He's come back as a ghost?"
"That's it, General."
Shale added, "We're not sayin' it happened, but that's what he says." He jerked his head toward the chute into which Sand's heels had vanished. "Sarge believes him. So do I, I guess."
Urus edged nearer
Maytera Mint. "They're abram, lady, all these chems Look, we're bios, all right? You 'n me, 'n Spider 'n Eland here. Even the long butcher."
She could scarcely make out Urus's features in the ash-dimmed light; yet she could picture his wheedling expression only too vividly.
"We got to stick, us bios. Got to make a knot, don't we? The way they're talkin', we'll all be cold."
"Good riddance," Spider muttered.
Sand's voice ended the conversation, hollow-sounding as it echoed down the chute overhead. "The augur next. Hand him up."
Remora was peering up the chute. "It's a manteion, eh?"
"Big one, Patera. Pretty dark, too. Wait a minute."
Slate had crouched at Remora's feet. "I'm goin' to grab you by the legs, see, Patera? I'm goin' to lift you up 'n in. Get your arms up over your head to steer yourself. When you're in good, I'll push on your feet 'n get you up as far as I can. Maybe you'll have to wiggle up a little more before Sarge can grab hold of you." Abruptly the dark mouth of the chute became a rectangle of light.
It is big, Maytera Mint thought; it has to be. They have a lot of victims, burn a cartload of wood at every sacrifice.
Sand's voice returned. "They got oil lamps here. I lit a couple for you."
"Thank you!" Remora called. "My most, um, deepest-ah-sincere appreciation, my son." He looked down at Slate. "I am ready, eh? Lift away."
"You'll be fine, Your Eminence," Maytera Mint assured him.
"You think-ah-fear me apprehensive." Remora smiled, his teeth visible in the light from the chute. "To, um, revisit the whorl of light, Maytera, I should-umph!"
Slate had grasped his ankles and was rising. For a moment Remora swayed dangerously and it seemed he must fall; but Spider pushed his hips to right him, and in another second his arms and head were out of sight.
"Here he comes, Sarge!"
"What it is, see," Urus was nearly at Maytera Mint's ear, "is they think they ought to give Pas somethin'. He put that in their heads, your jefe did."
"His Cognizance." Coughing, she turned to face Urus. "I cannot imagine His Cognizance in these horrible tunnels, though I know he was here with the Caldé."
"Me neither. Only, see-"
"Be quiet." Maytera Mint was studying Eland's beasts. "How are we going to get these animals up there, Slate?"
"I been thinkin' about that," Slate said. "Watch this."
Crouching again, he sprang into the chute and scrambled up.
"You two'd better stay here to lift the general and me up," Spider told Schist and Shale.
"Sure thing." With Slate gone, Schist leaned back against the shiprock wall. "We'll pass 'em up just like the slug guns. You'll see."
Shale indicated the opening with a contemptuous gesture. "He's buckin' for another stripe, Slate is. We used to have this corporal from 'H' Company, only he bought it in the big fight with the talus the other day. This time probably they'll promote from inside, and Slate figures he'll cop it."
Slate's voice came from the chute. "Knock off jawin' down there 'n pass them guns."
Schist said, "Sure thing," and lifted the bundled slug guns into the chute. Shale explained, "I strapped 'em together with one of the slings. Makes 'em easier to handle."
The bundle of guns vanished amid scrapings and bumpings. Schist tilted his head back and to the left to grin at Maytera Mint. "He's hangin' in there, see? Sarge's got his feet."
Spider coughed. "Maybe you'd like to go next, General."
"I would," she confessed, "but I'll go last. It is my place as the senior officer present."
"I don't think you can jump up there," Schist objected.
She turned on him. "'I don't think you can jump up there, sir.' Or 'General.' I give you your choice, Private, which is more than I ought to give you."
"Yes, sir. Only I don't think you can, sir, and I'd be glad to stay down here and help you, sir."
"That won't be necessary." Maytera Mint turned to the other soldier. "Private Shale."
"Yes, sir!" Shale snapped to attention.
"You were very ingenious with that sling. After you and Private Schist have passed these beasts up and helped Spider, Urus, and this other convict-"
"Eland," Eland put in, speaking for the first time since they had reached this darkest stretch of tunnel.
"Thank you. And Eland to climb up, you will contrive a rope of slug gun slings, making a loop at the bottom into which I can put one foot. Can you do that?"
"Sure thing, sir."
"Good. Do it. Then you can pull me up. Last."
Spider ventured, "You're goin' to be down here all alone, for a minute or two, anyhow."
"These-" She was wracked by a paroxysm of coughing. "These animals. I don't know what to call them."
"Bufes," Eland supplied.
"Thank you." Turning her head, she spat. "I will not call them gods. That must stop. More bufes may come, though I hope they won't. I pray they won't. But if they do I'll shoot them. If I don't see them in time, or don't aim well, I will die."
"I'll stay with you," Spider told her.
She shook her head. "Only one-"
From the chute, Slate called, "Gimme a god." Shale lifted a squirming beast over his head and thrust its hindquarters into the opening in the ceiling; its eyes were wild, and blood ran from the sinews binding its muzzle.
"I dunno if I could of trained 'em as big as that," Eland muttered, "only it seems like a shame to waste 'em."
"I caught 'em, sir," Shale explained to Maytera Mint. "The bios and me were back by that dead bio you left behind. We knew the smell would fetch 'em."
Schist added, "That was why Slate and Sarge jumped out of the dirt when they did, probably, sir. Sarge thought you might scare 'em off if you went back for the dead one."
"Perhaps. I can understand how a soldier could capture such an animal. What I cannot understand is how you, Eland, were able to capture others without the help of one."
"Mine was littler when I got 'em." He watched the second beast vanish up the chute. "We killed the big 'uns, we had to. I got behind the little 'uns and got a noose over their mouth."
"It must have been dangerous just the same."
He shrugged, the motion of his skeletal shoulders barely visible. "I want to go up next. Be with 'em. That all right?"
From the chute, Slate called, "Pass up them other bios."
"Certainly," Maytera Mint told Eland. She gestured toward the chute, and Schist lifted him.
"You can't get 'em to like you," Eland said as his head vanished into the chute, "only maybe mine did, a little."
From nearer the top, Slate told him, "Grab on."
"If the bufes don't bring Pas, lady, 'n they won't, I know they won't-"
Maytera Mint shook her head. "You cannot know."
"Then it's us. Me 'n Eland. Him, too," Urus pointed to Spider, "if you let 'em. That sergeant-"
"My son." Maytera Mint stepped so close to Urus that the muzzle of the needler she held gouged his ribs. "I have been most remiss with you. I have let you call me 'lady' or whatever you wished. I must remember to bring it up at my next shriving, if there is a next shriving. In future, you are to address me as Maytera. It means mother. Will you do that?"
"Yeah. Dimber here, Maytera."
"That is well." She smiled up at him; she was a full head shorter than he. "As your mother, your spiritual mother, I must explain something to you. Please pay strict attention."
Urus nodded mutely. From the chute, Slate called, "Gimme another one."
"Go, Spider," Maytera Mint said, and turned back to Urus. "I haven't had much time in which to form my estimate of your character, yet I think it accurate. It is not an estimate very favorable to you."
When he did not speak, she added, "Not favorable at all. I will not compare you to such a man as Sergeant Sand. Though not pious, he is resolute, energetic, loyal, and reasonably honest. To compare him to you would be grossly unjust to him. Nor will I venture to compare you to His Eminence. His Eminence has less
physical courage, I think, than many other men. Yet he has more than a casual observer might suppose, as I have seen, and his assiduity and piety have justly earned him a high position in the Chapter. He is intelligent as well, and he labors almost too diligently to put the mental acuity that he received from the gods at their service."
"Have you got the safety on that thing, lady?"
"Call me Maytera. I insist on it."
"All right, all right!" His voice shaking, Urus repeated, "Have you got the safety on?" and added, "Maytera?"
"No, my son, I do not." She took a deep breath. "Stop talking and listen. Your life hangs upon it, and we haven't long. I am a general and a sibyl. As a sibyl I try to find good in everyone, and though it may sound less than modest, I generally succeed. I find a great deal in His Eminence, as I would expect. I find more than I expected in Sergeant Sand. There is good in Private Slate, too, and in Private Shale and Private Schist here. Not good of a very high order, perhaps, but abundant in its kind. I have tried to find good in Spider and found more than I dared hope for. The glimmers of good in Eland are hardly discernible, yet unmistakable." She sighed. "I talk too much when I'm tired. I hope you've followed me."
Urus nodded. There was a faint play of light across one cheekbone; it was half a second before she understood that he was sweating, cold perspiration soaking the gray ash black and running down his face like rivulets of fresh paint.
"As a general, it is my duty to defeat the enemy. I must do it by killing men and women. I find that repugnant, but such is the case. You are the enemy, Urus. Do you follow me still?"
From the chute, Slate called, "Ready for the next one."
"That will be you," Maytera Mint told Shale. "Remember what I told you about those slings."
He saluted with a clash of steel. "I'll get right on it, sir."
She returned her attention to Urus. "You are the enemy, I say. Should I, who have been called the Sword of Echidna, let you live when I have you at my mercy?"
"You're fightin' the Ayuntamiento, right? General, I swear by every shaggy god there is that I never done nothin-"
"Be quiet!" Angrily, she poked him with the muzzle of the big needler that had been Spider's. "What you say is true, I'm sure. You never served the Ayuntamiento. But ultimately the enemy is evil. Evil is the ultimate enemy of us all."