by Gene Wolfe
Incus, returning, knelt beside Auk. "Is this sufficient? I can pull up the wick, should more light be needed." He held up a flame-topped globe of cut crystal.
"That's dimber," Auk told him. "I can see the place and the register, and that's all I got to see." Delicately, he eased the point of his knife into Sand's cranium. "Muzzle it, everybody. I got to think." He counted under his breath.
And Sand spoke, making Maytera Mint start. "V-fifty-eight, zero. V-fifty-eight, one. V-fifty-nine, zero. V-fifty-nine, one.
"Those are voluntary coprocessor inputs," Incus explained in an awed whisper. "He's enabling them."
When Auk showed no sign of having heard, the young sibyl from Brick Street whispered, "I simply can't believe that your Maytera-she was, I mean. That Molybdenum and that soldier are going to do all this, and where are they going to buy these coprocessor things?"
"They must make them, Maytera," Incus explained, "and I shall assist them." Maytera Mint shushed him.
Auk returned his knife to his boot. "Don't froth, Maytera. He's all right. He just don't know it yet."
As if on cue, Sand raised his head and stared around him.
"Hold that right there," Auk told him. "I got to put your skull plate back. How was Mainframe?"
The crack-crack-crack of a needler was followed by a savage snarl, more shots, and the boom of a slug gun. In the choir high above them, a nephrite image of Tartaros fell with a crash.
"Is that warm?" Abanja asked as she watched Sciathan pull on his flight suit.
Smiling was easy now. "Not as warm as I wish, sometimes."
"Then you better put the undershirt over it. It's wool and should be a lot warmer than that thing. Once you're on your horse you can wrap the blanket around you." She fingered the needler in her holster. "Can you ride?"
"I never have."
"That's good," Abanja told him. "It may save your life."
In the cutting wind outside, two bearded men held a pair of restive horses. Abanja said, "That's mine," and to Sciathan's relief pointed to the larger. "The other one's yours. Let's see you mount."
She watched him for five minutes while the bearded men struggled to contain their mirth. At last she said, "You really can't ride, or you're a marvelous actor," and ordered them to help him. As they lifted him into the seat, she swung herself up and onto her own tall horse with a practiced motion that seemed almost miraculous. "Now let me explain something." She leveled her index finger. "It's two leagues to the city, and when we're halfway you're liable to think that all you've got to do to get away is clap your heels to that horse."
He shook his head. "I will not."
"I could chain you to your saddle, like you were chained to that pole. But if you fell, you'd probably be dragged to death, and I don't want to lose you. So listen. If you start that horse galloping, you're going to fall and you could be killed. If you're not I'll catch you, and I'll make you wish you'd died. Don't say I didn't warn you." She slapped her horse with its own control straps, and it stalked away a great deal faster than Sciathan had ever wanted a horse to go.
"I will not ride quicker than you," he promised.
For a moment it appeared he would not ride at all. Then one of the bearded men shouted, "Hup!" and struck the horse with something that made a popping sound, and he felt that he was being blown about by the wildest gale in the Whorl.
Abanja pulled up and looked back at him. "Another thing. This is a good horse. Yours isn't. Yours is old, a common remount nobody wants. Your horse couldn't gallop as fast as mine if a lion were after it."
Shaken too hard to nod, he clutched his blanket.
"If you're fooling me-if you really can ride, and you gallop off when you see your chance-I'll shoot your horse. It's not easy to bring down an animal as big as a horse with a needler, but half a dozen ought to do it. I'll try not to hit you, but I can't promise."
He gasped, "You are a kind woman."
"Don't count on it." After a moment she laughed. "It's just that you may be useful. Certainly it will be useful for you to show Siyuf what you showed me. I take it women aren't kind among your people."
"Oh, no!" He hoped his shock showed in his face. "Our women are very kind."
"That Aer who screamed, wasn't that a woman? You said, her. Stand in the stirrups if you're getting bounced."
He tried. "Yes, a woman. A kind woman."
"You loved her." There was a note in Abanja's voice he had not heard before.
"Very much. If I may say this, Mear loved Sumaire also. In the tent last night I thought about them. How stupid I was! I did not know they loved until they died."
"Mear, was that the woman who killed the troopers?"
For the first time since his capture, Sciathan felt like laughing. "Mear is a man's name. It was Sumaire who killed the women with guns, and they killed her."
"Just trying to take away their weapons."
Aer had been shot before Sumaire killed the troopers, but arguing would be worse than useless. Sciathan remained silent.
"She was your leader?" Abanja slowed her horse.
"Thank you." He was genuinely grateful. "We do not fly like that. Each flies for himself. Sumaire was the best at gleacaiocht, the best at fighting with hands and feet. I do not know your word."
"I saw her body," Abanja told him, "but I didn't measure it. I wish I had. The blonde?"
By now Sciathan was able to shake his head. "Dark hair. Like yours."
"The little one?"
He nodded, recalling how cheerful Sumaire had always been, most cheerful when storms roared up and down the hold. When Mainframe had needed information and not excuses, it had sent Sumaire.
It would send her no more.
"Answer me!"
"I am sorry. I did not intend to be rude." Unconsciously, Sciathan looked down the unpaved track and over the wind-scoured fields, seeking something that would render his loss bearable. "The small one, yes. Smaller than Aer."
"But taller than you."
He looked at Abanja in some astonishment.
"Was she smaller?"
"Yes, much." He considered. "The top of Aer's head came to my eyes. I think the top of Sumaire's head would have come to Aer's eyes, or lower. To my mouth or chin."
"Yet she killed troopers a long cubit taller."
"She was a fine fighter, one who taught others when she was not flying."
Abanja looked thoughtful. "What about you? Do you know this kind of fighting? I forget the word you used?"
"Gleacaiocht. I know something, but I am not as quick and skillful as Sumaire was. Few are."
When Abanja said nothing, he added. "We all learn it. We cannot carry weapons as you do. Even a small knife would be too heavy." Now that he was no longer being shaken so much, he had begun to feel the cold. He shook out the rough blanket he had held onto so desperately and wrapped himself in it as she had suggested, contriving a hood for his head and neck.
"In that case you can't carry food or water, can you?"
"No, only our instruments-" He had been on the point of saying "and our PMs." He substituted, "and ourselves."
"Have you seen our pterotroopers? Troopers with wings who fly out of the airship?"
"I have not seen these. I was told, and I have seen your airship if it is what I think."
"You can see it now." Abanja pointed. "That brown thing catching the sun above the housetops. Our pterotroopers carry slug guns and twenty rounds, but no rations or water. We tried field packs, but they left them behind whenever they could."
"Yes," Sciathan said.
"You would too, you mean. So would I, I suppose, though I've never flown. I doubt that our wings are much better than yours, and they may not be as good. I hadn't thought about how you'd fight, but I should have. Do you have to break your wings if you're forced down? You said that."
He nodded. "We must."
"The others didn't. We've got them. Siyuf is sending a pair back to Trivigaunte for study, the blond woman's wings and her propu
lsion module. Is that what you call it?"
"In the Common Tongue? Yes."
"What about in your language?"
He shrugged. "It does not matter."
Abanja stopped her horse and drew her weapon. "It does to you, mannikin, because I'll shoot if you don't answer. What do you call it?"
He chose the least revealing word. "The canna."
"Her canna. You don't know how they work, you say."
"I do not. Shoot me and end it."
Again; her smile surprised him. "Shoot you? I've hardly started on you. Who makes them?"
"Our scientists. I do not know the names."
"You have scientists."
"That may not be the correct term." He had said too much, and knew it. "Makers. Mechanics. Is that not what it means?"
"Scientists," Abanja said firmly, then changed the subject with an abruptness that startled him. "You loved Aer. Were you planning to be married?"
"No, she was a Flier."
"Fliers don't marry? Here the holy women don't, which seems pointless to us."
"Marriage is so that there shall be children, new Fliers, in the next generation." He was floundering. "I do not talk of you or, or-" He pointed. "People in the house upon this small hill. But for us, for Crew, it is for children. A Flier woman cannot, because she could not fly. She may when she no longer flies. Some give up wings for marriage." He hesitated, remembering. "They are not happy soon."
"But you can marry. Are you?"
"Yes. One wife." If he had succeeded in this, he would have been given one more at least, and perhaps as many as four; he thrust the thought aside.
"But you loved Aer. She must have been handsome when she was alive, I could see that. Did she love you?"
He nodded slowly. "When she was alive, I wondered. She did not like to say. She is dead, and I know she did."
"I know this must mean a whole lot to you, Patera, and I really am sorry." Chenille's face, framed by the metal margins of the glass, was almost comically apologetic.
"Why?" Silk seated himself in the low-backed chair facing it. "Because my egg will get cold? The kitchen here will send up another if I want it, I feel sure."
"We all got together," Chenille drew breath, her formidable breasts heaving like capsized boats. "That's Auk and me, and General Mint and Sandy and the other soldiers, and Spider and Patera Incus, and those sibyls. Maytera Wood and Maytera Maple, and the rest of them. I don't remember who most of them are."
"I doubt that it matters," Silk told her. "What were you getting together about?"
"Everything, but especially the shooting. So much's been-oh, hi, Hy! I'm sorry about this, truly I am, only Patera said you were finished and having breakfast."
"Bird eat," Oreb announced from Hyacinth's shoulder; Tick countered with, "Ma durst, due add word!" She hushed them, setting Silk's plate and the toast rack before him. "Hi, Chen. Did you and Auk get married too?"
"We talked about it, but we want Patera to do it, so just Moly and her soldier."
"I know that soldier," Hyacinth positioned Silk's egg cup, "and I know your Auk, too. Kypris's kindness on both of you. You're going to need it."
"Auk's all right." Chenille winked. "You've got to know how to handle him."
Silk cleared his throat. "You mentioned shooting, and that sounds very serious. Who was shot?"
"Eland. Only I'd better start at the beginning, Patera-"
He raised his hand. "One question more, before you do. Who is Eland?"
"This cull General Mint nabbed when she was down in the tunnels where me and Auk were."
Oreb whisfied. "Bird see!"
"Yeah. Oreb, too. She had these culls, Spider and Eland, and the soldiers were watching them for her. Spider's the fat cull, and the skinny one was Eland, only he's dead."
Silk's forefinger drew small circles on his cheek. "I said I would ask only one question, but I'd like a point verified as well. When you listed those who participated in your impromptu conference, did you include Sergeant Sand?"
"That's the pure quill, Patera. Auk brought him back, just like General Mint says Pas said he would."
"I see. I ought to have had more faith in Pas, though at the time it appeared to me that Maytera Mint had originally had more than enough for both of us, and had been disappointed."
"Yeah, Auk was too. He got all these culls sold on him and said Pas would come, so after the animals were used up and Pas never did, they cleared out. Except Gib. Then when you and Hy went, and Moly and Hammerstone, Gib did too. I said I'd start at the beginning. I guess I have already."
Silk nodded. "Tell me everything, please."
"When you and Hy went, the old man sort of followed you. Master Xiphias, only I don't think he went home. I think he's probably hanging around there to watch out for you. Then His Cognizance and the augur that talked to us that time in your manse left. Maybe it would be easier if I said who didn't, who was still there."
"Go ahead."
"I'll try not to make it so long. Auk stuck, so I did too. We slept on the floor and didn't do anything. Everybody from Brick Street stayed, and Patera Incus, like I said, and General Mint and the soldiers, only Sandy was dead, and those culls the soldiers were watching. I think that's everybody.
"It was a soldier shooting that woke me up, Slate his name is. There was somebody way up in the balcony, and he'd shot Eland. Patera Incus said Pas for him. Slate saw him up there and took a shot at him, only he doesn't think he got him. He broke a beautiful statue, is all. Auk went up there with him to look, and they brought back a great big dead cat. I thought it was Gib's baboon at first, but it wasn't. It was spotted, sort of like a big house cat only with a little beard and a little shon tail."
Hyacinth said, "We brought it in the floater," to which Tick added, "Add cot!" "I was sort of scared of it," Hyacinth continued, "but Silk said it wouldn't hurt us, and it didn't."
He put down his cup. "His name was Lion, and he belonged to Mucor. We stopped at the Caldé's Palace and let him out, thinking he would go to her; it's only a few streets from the Grand Manteion, of course. Am I to take it that Lion was with the person who shot Eland, and that this Slate hit Lion when he tired at Eland's murderer?"
Chenille shook her head, her raspberry curls dancing. "It wasn't a slug gun that did for it, it was a needler. We think when it saw this cully shoot Eland it went for him and he shot it, too. Auk says he heard it before Slate shot, and a needler shooting four or five times up there. That's what got everybody worked up, mostly. That and Pas, only nobody saw him, and Auk bringing back Sandy. Only Sandy's kind of mixed up, on account of being dead."
"I would like to speak to him," Silk said. "I will, at the first opportunity. Before you proceed, did you know Eland, other than as a prisoner of Maytera Mint's? Did you, Hyacinth?"
Both said they had not.
"Since Maytera Mint captured him, I assume he was one of our citizens who remained loyal to the Ayuntamiento. If that's the case, he may have been shot by someone who considered that treachery; but there are a dozen other possibilities. What took place after that?"
"Did I tell you the old augur from Brick Street's dead? He'd gone to Mainframe when I woke up, only he wasn't shot or anything. It looked like he'd just gone to sleep."
"When Pas came," Silk murmured.
"I guess it could've been, yeah. Auk says Pas showed him that stuff about Sandy, only he doesn't remember seeing him."
Silk broke the corner of a slice of toast, and dipped it into his egg. "Others have been visited by gods, though they did not see them. Patera Jerboa was safeguarding a fragment of Pas-or so Hyacinth and I were told."
Hyacinth said, "Something's bothering you. What is it?"
Much as Sciathan was just then shrugging in response to a question from Abanja, Silk shrugged. "I was thinking that the fragment of Pas which Patera Jerboa was safeguarding may have been responsible for his long life, and that its retrieval may have been responsible in his death-not because Pas willed it, but simp
ly because that fragment of Pas was no longer present to maintain him in life."
Silk put the egg-soaked toast into his mouth, chewed it reflectively, and swallowed. When neither woman spoke, he said, "After that, logically enough, I began to wonder which god it is who maintains the rest of us. I believe I can guess, but we have other things to talk about. Naturally you were agitated, Chenille. No doubt all of you were.
"That's right, and General Mint said we ought to find you and tell you, only we thought you'd come here. The sibyls from Brick Street-"
"Wait. You're at the Caldé's Palace?"
"Right. We thought you and Hy probably came here, so we walked over, except the sibyls. They stayed to watch the old man's body, and there's a deadcoach supposed to come. Only you and Hy weren't here. I went in here where this glass is because I thought the monitor would probably know where you went."
Hyacinth exclaimed, "It couldn't!"
"Last night Hyacinth instructed our monitor not to reveal our whereabouts to anyone," Silk explained. He looked to her for confirmation, and she nodded vigorously.
"It didn't, Violet told me. See, the one here couldn't find you, so I tried to figure out where you'd go, you and Hy. You're not going to like this, Patera."
"I won't be angry, I promise."
"The first place I thought of was back to Sun Street, that little three cornered house where I waited for you. Only the monitor where the sibyls live didn't think you were around." Chenille hesitated, unwilling to meet Silk's eyes. "So then I thought where could they have gone? It was still pretty early. It was about the time the market opens when we came over here."
He said, "I can think of one other place, though I can't imagine why you suppose I might be insulted because you thought of it as well-my rooms in the Juzgado. I slept there before we reopened the Caldé's Palace."
Chenille shook her head again, the dance of her fiery hair wilder than ever. "I knew you wouldn't go there, Patera. You wouldn't want somebody bothering you like I am now, so it would be the very last place. Only I thought maybe Orchid's, and it couldn't hurt to try. I figured she'd be asleep, but I could ask the monitor and maybe go down there and get something at the little bakery across the street and wait for you and Hy to come out. So I tried, only Orchid was awake. You remember Violet?"