Epiphany of the Long Sun

by Gene Wolfe

  Chenille stared. "Is this… I don't-"

  Silk said, "Councillor Potto is merely using you to make a point, Chenille. He prefers to make his points in the most objectionable way possible, as General Mint and I can testify. What is it, Councillor?"

  "That even trivial things are seldom free." Potto smiled. "That there is a price to pay, even when it's a trivial price. Want to hear mine for the airship?"

  Silk nodded, feeling Hyacinth's hand tighten about his,

  Loris said, "I've no idea what he has in mind, but I'm going to attach one of my own first. You're to do nothing to interfere with us during the month specified. No attacks on any position of ours, including Erne's."

  Silk said, "We wouldn't, of course-if we accepted. But it's your cousin's price that concerns me."

  "Two men." Potto held up two fingers. "I want to borrow one and keep the other. Can't you guess which they are?"

  "I believe so. Perhaps I should have made it clear that I haven't the least intention of accepting. Even if you had offered to do it for nothing, as a gesture of goodwill, I still could not have accepted."

  Auk started to protest, but Silk cut him off. "Let me say this once and for all, not just to you, Auk, and not just to these councillors; but to everyone present. Trivigaunte is our ally. There has been friction between us, true. I daresay that there is always friction in every alliance, even the small and simple alliance of husband with wife."

  Hyacinth's lips brushed his cheek.

  "I did not ask the Rani to send us help, but I welcomed it with open arms when she did. I have no intention of turning against her and her people now, because of a little friction. Maytera Marble often tells me things she's learned from watching children's games, and I received the greatest lesson of my life during one such game; now I want to propose a game for us. Let us pretend for a few minutes that I'm Generalissimo Siyuf. Will all of you accept that, for the sake of the game?"

  His eyes went from face to face. "Very well, I am Siyuf. I understand that some of you are nursing grievances in spite of my long and swift march to your rescue, and in spite of the aid I brought you. Let me hear them now. There is not one I cannot dispose of."

  Loris said, "I hope you're not so deep in your part as to shoot me."

  Silk smiled and shook his head.

  "Very well then, Generalissimo Siyuf. I have a complaint, exactly as you said. I'm speaking as the presiding officer of the Ayuntamiento, the legitimate government of this city. You and your troops are interfering in our internal affairs. That is an act of war."

  Silk heaved a sigh, and his gaze strayed to Chenille, who was pouring tea for Maytera Mint. "Councillor, your government was never legitimate, because it was established by murdering your lawful Caldé. I can't say which of you ordered his murder, or whether you acted jointly. For the purposes of discussion, let's assume it was Councillor Lemur, and that he acted alone. You nevertheless-"

  "I didn't intend to get into this," Loris protested. His craggy face was grim.

  "You introduced the subject yourself when you referred to yours as the legitimate government, Councillor. I was about to say that though you searched for the adopted son Caldé Tussah had named as his successor, as your duty required, you did not hold elections for new councillors, as your Charter demands. My ally Caldé Silk governs because the people of your city wish it, and so his claim is better than yours. Aid given by a friendiy power is not an act of war. How could it be? Are you saying that we of Trivigaunte attacked your city? It welcomed us with a parade."

  Silk waited for a response; when none came, he said, "You have already heard that I know the contents of your previous Caldé's will. I found a copy in your Jurgado. Let me say, too, that in my opinion the adopted son you searched for with so much diligence did not exist. Caldé Tussah invented this son to draw your attention from an other child, an illegitimate child who may or may not have been born before his death. If she had already been born, referring to an adopted son was doubly misleading, as he doubtless intended it to be." Silk sipped his tea. "Don't go, Chenille."

  Potto sprang to his feet. "You!"

  "Did you kill my father, Councillor?" Chenille's dark eyes flashed. "The real one? I don't know, but I don't think it was really Councillor Lemur. I think it was you!"

  Oosik raised his slug gun, telling Potto to sit down.

  "If you did and evidence can be found," Silk continued, "you will have to stand trial. So far we have none."

  "Are you Silk or Siyuf?" Potto demanded.

  "Silk at present. I'll resume the game in a moment. Your Cognizance, will you speak? I ask it as a favor." Upon Silk's shoulder, Oreb fluttered uneasily.

  "If you want me to, Patera Caldé." Quetzal's glittering gaze was fixed on Potto. "Not many of us knew Tussah. Patera Remora did, and Loris. Did you, Generalissimo?"

  Oosik shook his head. "Twenty years ago I was a captain. I saw him several times, but I doubt that he knew my name."

  "He knew mine, eh?" Remora cleared his throat. "I had, er, was coadjutor in those-um-happier days. Ah-mother still living, eh, General? It, um, sufficient in itself, hey? Though there were other favorable circumstances."

  Chenille, who had stopped pouring tea, murmured, "I wish I knew more about him."

  "I, um, disliked him, I confess," Remora told her. "Not hatred, you understand. And there were times, eh? But I was, er, substantially alone in it. Wrong, too, eh? Wrong. I, um, concede it now. Loud, brawling, vigorous, and I was-um-determined, quite determined secretly, to be offended. But he, er, put the city first. Always did, and I-ah-accorded insufficient weight to it."

  "He wouldn't flatter my then coadjutor, Patera Caldé," Quetzal explained. "He flattered me, however. He flattered me by confiding in me. He never married. Are you both aware of that?"

  Silk and Chenille nodded.

  "Clergy take a vow of chastity. Even with its support, chastity is too severe for many. He confided to me, as one friend to another, that his housekeeper was his mistress."

  "Not-ah-under the Seal, eh?"

  Quetzal's hairless head swayed on its long neck. "I don't and won't speak of shriving, though I shrove him once or twice. This was at dinner, one at which only he and I were present. If he were alive I wouldn't speak of it. He's dead and can't speak for himself. He introduced the woman to me. He asked me to take care of her should he die.

  Chenille said, "If that was my mother, you didn't."

  "I did not. I couldn't find her. Though she was good-looking in her way, she was an ignorant woman of the servant class. I know she disliked me, and I think she was afraid of me. She was guilty of adultery weekly, and unable to imagine forgiveness for it."

  Silk said, "You searched for her as soon as you heard Caldé Tussah was dead?"

  "I did, Patera Caldé. Not as thoroughly as I should, since she was alive and I failed to find her."

  Loris said, "I remember her now. The gardener's wife. She oversaw the kitchen and the laundry. A virago."

  Quetzal nodded frigidly. "She was the type he admired, and he was the type she did."

  Auk began, "This gardener cully-"

  "A marriage of convenience, performed by my prothonotary in five minutes. There would have been talk if Tussah had a single woman in this palace. His gardener wasn't intelligent, though a good man and a hard worker. He was proud to be seen as married, as a man who'd won the love of an attractive woman. I imagine she dominated him completely. I thought they would look for new employment when Tussah died, and I planned to make places for them on our staff. They didn't. I know now, thanks to Patera Caldé, that they became beggars. At the time I assumed they'd known something about Tussah's death, and had been silenced."

  Chenille said, "We sold watercress. But if somebody wanted to give us money, we took it. I used to ask for money, too, and run errands. Do little jobs." She swallowed. "After a while I found out there were things men would give me half a card for. It was a fortune to us, enough food for a week." She stared at her listeners, chal
lenging them.

  Loris smiled. "Blood will tell, they say."

  "Blood won't," Silk declared. "Blood's dead-I killed him. But if Blood were alive, he might tell you that it was good business to give rust, at first, to the young women at Orchid's, and to sell it to them afterward-to keep them in constant need of money, and thus keep them there for as long as he and Orchid let them stay. The Ayuntamiento let him bring rust and other drugs into our city, in return for what I must call criminal services."

  Hyacinth said, "I use it sometimes, and I've been telling myself that if Chen can kick it so can I, and I hope it's true. But it's hard, don't ever believe anybody who says it's not.

  Quetzal gave Loris a lipless smile. "Blood does tell, my son." "Watch out!" Oreb advised; it was not clear to which he spoke.

  Maytera Mint asked, "Do you know why they didn't try to find another situation, Caldé?"

  "I don't; but I believe I can guess. Chenille's mother had recently given birth to the Caldé's child, or if she had not, she was carrying that child-and it was her child, too. She must have guessed, or known, that the Caldé had been murdered. At that time, the Ayuntamiento was searching everywhere for the adopted son mentioned in the Caldé's will; and she would have supposed, as I believe most people did, that it would kill him if it found him. She needn't have been an educated woman, or an imaginative one, to guess what would happen to another child of the Caldé's, if it learned that she existed."

  Silk filled his lungs, feeling a twinge from his wounded chest. "We've gotten far off the subject, but since we're here, let's finish what we've begun. Caldé Tussah left a substantial estate. I have it now as trustee for his daughter; I'll turn it over to Chenille as soon as she reaches twenty, the legal age of maturity."

  "Good girl!" Oreb assured everyone.

  Loris told Silk, "That will have to be adjudicated by the courts, I'm afraid."

  He shook his head. "Our government is sorely in need of funds, Councillor. We have a war to prosecute, in addition to all the usual civic expenses; and we gave each of General Mint's troopers two cards, as well as his or her weapon, before we sent them home."

  Loris said, "You're generous with the taxpayers' money."

  "In order to do it, we've taken control of the Fisc; the city assumes responsibility for inactive accounts, and for the accounts in trust, such as Caldé Tussah's. We've sequestered the accounts of the members of the Ayuntamiento, as you know. Do you want to talk about it now?"

  Sciathan said, "We must speak more of the airship. It is urgent. This Potto says he will get it, but in one month. We have a few days at most. Not more."

  "Why?" Hyacinth asked him, speaking across Silk.

  Auk told him, "Let 'em jaw about the money first. If you don't, they'll keep going back to it."

  "Wise man!" Oreb exclaimed.

  Silk rapped the table. "Which will it be, the airship or your accounts? Personally I'd prefer to deal with Generalissimo Oosik's complaints against Generalissimo Siyuf, and General Mint and Colonel Bison's. It's usually best, I've found, to consider minor matters first and get them out of the way. Otherwise they cloud everyone's thinking, as Auk says."

  "We knew you'd stolen our money," Loris told him, "but we also knew it would be useless to protest the theft."

  Maytera Mint declared, "You want to make peace after all."

  "Hardly. But we're prepared to offer you new terms of surrender, much more liberal terms than those I proposed at Blood's, which were intended merely as an opening point for negotiations."

  "You said at the time that they were not negotiable," Silk reminded him.

  "Certainly. One always does. You were willing to listen to Potto's proposal. Will you hear ours as well? Our joint proposal?"

  "Of course."

  "Then let me first explain why you should accept it. You assert that you have a strategy that will assure your victory, though you are loath to follow it. You are mistaken, but we are not. We have a strategy of our own, one that will assure your defeat in under a year."

  Oosik said, "Clearly you do not, or you would follow it," and Silk nodded.

  "You have been assisting us with it," Loris continued, smiling, "for which we are appropriately grateful."

  Potto grinned. "We're giving away slug guns too!"

  "We are," Loris confirmed, "and other weapons as well, needlers mostly. We still have access to several stores of weapons. I hope you will excuse my keeping their locations confidential."

  "Giving them to who?" Bison inquired.

  "In a moment. Some preparation is necessary. You were underground not long ago, Colonel. The tunnels are extensive, are you aware of it? You saw not a thousandth part of them."

  "I've been told the Caldé went into them from a shrine by the lake, and that General Mint went in from a house north of the city and came out on the Palatine. If those she saw and those he saw belong to the same complex, it's pretty large."

  Maytera Mint told him, "Much larger than that, according to what I've learned from Spider."

  "I want him," Potto put in. "I want him and the Flier. I offered the airship and you refused it. Name your price."

  Silk sighed. "I said that trivial points tend to obscure discussions. This is just such a point, so let's dispose of it. Spider is our prisoner. We will exchange him for one of equal value, during this truce or another. Have you a prisoner to offer us? Who is it?"

  Potto shook his head. "I will have, soon. Give him back, and you'll get double value as soon as I have it."

  "No!" Maytera Mint struck the table with her small fist, and Hyacinth's catachrest thrust his furry little head above the tabletop, saying, "Done bay saw made, laddie."

  "Of course not," Silk told Potto, "but may I propose an alternative I believe workable?"

  "Let's hear it'

  "In a moment. You also want Sciathan."

  "Only temporarily." Potto giggled. "I'll pay you a line for every day I keep him over a fortnight, how's that? Like a library book. I still have a lot more money than you stole."

  Auk declared, "I heard about you from Maytera, and you ain't taking him."

  "Auk speaks for me as well," Silk said, "and for all of us. Sciathan is a free individual-"

  "A free man," Loris amended.

  "Precisely. He is not mine to give or keep. He is here in this palace as my guest, and nothing more-nothing less, I ought to say. If you believe he's under restraint, ask him."

  Remora tossed back his lank black hair. "'Sacred unto Pas are the life and property of the stranger you welcome.'"

  "Furthermore, he would disappoint you. He's been beaten and interrogated already by Generalissimo Siyut who hoped to learn how the Fliers' propulsion modules operate. Councillor Lemur killed Iolar, who was another Flier, for the same reason; I shrove Iolar before he died. Since Lemur himself died soon after, you may not be aware of it. Are you?"

  Loris shrugged. "We were aware of his capture, of course. What Lemur learned from him died with Lemur, unfortunately."

  "Lemur learned nothing from him; that was why Lemur killed him. I discussed the propulsion modules with Sciathan today. He freely conceded that their principle is important; that it would be valuable to our city or any other is obvious; but he doesn't have it, and neither did Iolar.

  "The scientists who make them remain in Mainframe, safe from capture. The Fliers who use them are kept ignorant of the principle, for reasons they understand and approve. It's an elementary precaution, one that you and your fellow councillors ought to have anticipated. It would have been anticipated, surely, by anyone not blinded by the itch for power. If you want to find out how they operate, you might capture one of those the Trivigauntis have and take it apart; but I doubt that I could tell leaf from root."

  "Naturally you couldn't." Potto giggled. "Have you got one? Name your price for Spider. A hundred cards? I want to hear it, and the price of the propulsion module, too, if you've got one."

  "We don't. Councillor Loris, Councillor Lemur told me that he was a bio
, not a chem. Are you?"

  "Certainly."

  "Despite the marble bookend you crushed at Blood's?"

  "This is not my natural body. Physically, I'm on our boat, well out of your reach. This body," Loris touched his black velvet tunic, "is a chem, if you like. To simplify matters, I won't object to your calling it that. I manipulate it from my bed, making it move and speak as I did when I was younger."

  Maytera Mint told Silk, "I explained all this, I think."

  "Yes, you did, Maytera; I'm very grateful. Spider should be grateful as well."

  "If it gets me loose," Spider grunted.

  "It very well may. From what General Mint has reported, counterintelligence has been your chief concern. I'm not so naive as to think that your organization-what remains of it-could not be put to other uses, however; and I noticed that Councillor Potto wanted you back when he was planning to seize control of General Saba's airship."

  Potto said, "I do anyhow. He's valuable to us."

  "Clearly. Primarily in frustrating spies?"

  Loris said, "Primarily, yes."

  "Spider, General Mint says you're a decent man, a patriot in your way. If I were to release you to Councillor Potto, as you wish, would you be willing to give me your solemn promise that in so far as our forces are concerned, you would confine your activities entirely to counterintelligence? By 'our forces' I intend those headed by Generalissimo Oosik and Auk-not only the Guard, but General Mint's volunteers, including those commanded by her through Colonel Bison."

  Spider licked his lips. "If Councillor Potto don't tell me I can't, yeah, I will."

  Potto raised a hand. "Wait. I think I heard something funny. Does your friend Auk have a private horde now?"

  Auk grinned. "The best thieves in the whole city, the ones that's going with me and Sciathan. A month for the airship, you said. I figure we might nab it a whole lot sooner."

  Sciathan stood up. "We must! If the Cargo will not leave the Whorl, Pas will drive everyone out as one drives a bear from a cave. He will starve and afflict Crew and Cargo until we go."