by Gene Wolfe
Chapter 5. THE SLAVE OF SPHIGX
It was Molpsday, Silk reminded himself as he sat up in bed: the day for light-footed speed, and after work for singing and dancing. He did not feel particularly light-footed as he sat up, swung his legs over the side of his bed, and rubbed his eyes and his bristling jaw. He had slept-how long? Almost too long, but he could still join the sibyls in their morning prayers if he hurried. It had been the first good night's sleep he had gotten since. . . . Since Thelxday.
He stretched, telling himself he would have to hurry. Breakfast later or not at all, though there was still fruit left and vegetables enough for half the quarter.
He stood, resolved to hurry, received a flash of pain in his right ankle for his effort, and sat down again abruptly. Blood's lioness-headed stick was leaning against the head of the bed, with Crane's wrapping on the floor beside it. He picked up the wrapping and lashed the floor with it. "Sphigx will be the goddess for me today," he muttered, "my prop and my support." He traced the sign of addition in the air. "Thou Sabered, Stabbing, Roaring Sphigx, Lioness and Amazon, be with me to the end. Give me courage in this, my hour of hardship."
Crane's wrapping was burning hot; it squeezed his ankle like a vise and felt perfectly wonderful as he trotted down the stairs to fill his washbasin at the kitchen pump.
Oreb was asleep on top of the larder, standing on one leg, his head tucked beneath his sound wing. Silk called, "Wake up, old bird. Food? Fresh water? This is the time to ask."
Oreb croaked in protest without showing his face.
There was still some of his old cage left, and a large, live ember from the fire that had cooked no vegetables last night. Silk laid half a dozen twigs across it, puffed, and actually rubbed his hands at the sight of the young flame. He would not have to use any precious paper at all!
"It's morning," he told the bird. "The shade's up, and you should be too."
There was no reply.
Oreb, Silk decided, was openly ignoring him. "I have a broken ankle," he told the bird happily. "And a stiff arm - Master Xiphias thought I was left-handed, did I tell you about that? And a sore belly, and a fine big black-and-blue mark on my chest where Musk hit me with the pommel of his knife." He arranged three small splits on top of the blazing, snapping twigs. "But I don't care one bit. It's Molpsday, marvelous Molpsday, and I feel marvelous. If you're going to be my pet, so must you, Oreb." He clanged shut the firebox and set his shaving water on the stove.
"Fish heads?"
"No fish heads. There hasn't been time for fish heads, but I believe there might be a nice pear left. Do you like pears?"
"Like pears."
"So do I, so it's share and share alike." Fishing out of the sink the knife he had used to slice his tomatoes, he wiped the blade (noticing with a pang of guilt that it was beginning to rust) and whacked the pear in half, then bit into his share, drained the sink, pumped more water, and splashed his face, neck, and hair. "Wouldn't you like to join us for morning prayers, Oreb? You don't have to, but I have the feeling it might be good for you." Picturing Maytera Rose's reaction to the bird he laughed. "It would be good for me, too, in all likelihood."
"Bird sleep."
"Not until you've finished your pear, I trust. If it's still here when I get back, I'll eat it myself."
Oreb fluttered down to the tabletop. "Eat now." "Very wise," Silk commended him, and took another bite from his half, thinking first of his dream-it had been a remarkable dream, from what he remembered of it - then of the yellowish surgical catgut lacing Mucor's scalp. Had he seen that, or merely dreamed it? And then of Crane who was a doctor too, and had almost certainly implanted the homed cats in the mad girl's womb, doubtless two or even three at a time.
Upstairs, while he lathered and scraped, he remembered what Chenille had said about getting enough money from Crane to save the manteion. Ordinarily he would have discarded any suggestion as wild as that summarily, but Chenille was not Chenille-or at least, not Chenille solely-and no matter what she might say, there was no point in deceiving himself about that, though politeness, apparently, demanded a pretense. He had begged Comely Kypris to return, but she had done him one better: she had never left-or rather, merely left the Sacred Window to possess Chenille.
It was a great honor for Chenille, to be sure. For a moment he envied her. He himself had been enlightened by the Outsider, however, and that was a greater honor still. After that, he should never envy anyone else anything at all. Kypris was the whores' goddess. Had Chenille been a good whore? And was she being rewarded for it? She-or rather, the goddess-or perhaps both-had said she would not go back to Orchid's.
He wiped and dried his razor and inspected his face in the mirror.
Did that mean, perhaps, that Kypris loved them without loving what they did? It was an inspiring thought, and very possibly a correct one. He did not know nearly as much as he urgently needed to know about Kypris, just as he remained lamentably ignorant of the Outsider, though the Outsider had showed him so very much and Kypris had revealed something of herself last night-her relations with Pas, particularly.
Silk toweled his face and turned to the wardrobe for a clean tunic, recalling as he did that Patera Remora had as much as ordered him to buy himself new clothes. With the cards left from Orpine's rites, there should be no trouble about that.
Hyacinth had held his tunic for him, had helped him put it back on despite his injured arm. He found that instead of running downstairs to join the sibyls in the manteion he was sitting on his bed again with his head in his hands, his head swimming with thoughts of Hyacinth. How beautiful she had been, and how kind! How wonderful, sitting beside him as they drove to the grave. He would have to die-all men died-and so would she; but they need not die alone. With a slight shock he realized that his dream had been no idle phantom of the night but had been sent by a god, no doubt by Hierax, who had figured in it (that in itself was a nearly determinative signature) with Orpine's white spirit in his hands.
Filled with joy again, Silk stood and snatched a clean tunic from the wardrobe. Blood had called his bird Hierax, a deliberate blasphemy. He, Silk, had killed that bird, or at least had fought against it and caused its death. Hierax therefore had favored him-indeed, Hierax had been favoring him ever since, not only by sending him a dream filled with the god's symbols, but by giving him Orpine's very profitable rites. No one could say Hierax had been ungrateful!
The robe he had worn the day before was soiled now, and badly spotted with dried blood; but there was no clean robe with which to replace it. He got out his clothes brush and whaled away, making the dust fly.
Men and women, made of mud (originally by the Outsider, according to one somewhat doubtful passage in the Writings) turned to dust at last. Fell to dust only too quickly, in all truth. The same sober thought had crossed his mind toward the close of Orpine's rites, as he had been driving the screws to fasten the lid of Orpine's casket.
And Chenille had interrupted him, rising like - like . . . The comparison slipped away. He tried to recreate the scene in his mind. Chenille, taller than many men, with tightly curled fiery hair, big bones, flat cheeks, and large breasts, wooden yet twitching in her plain blue gown.
No. It had been a black gown, as was proper. Had she been wearing blue when he had seen her first, at Orpine's? No, green. Almost certainly green.
Horn's toy! That was it. He had never seen it. (He brushed harder than ever.) But he had seen toys like it, jointed figures worked with four strings on a wooden cross. Horn's had worn a painted blue coat, and Chenille had, at first, moved like such a toy, as if the goddess had not yet learned to work her strings well. She had talked no better than Oreb.
Was it possible that even a goddess had to learn to do new things? That was a fresh thought indeed.
But goddesses learned quickly, it seemed; by the time Patera Remora had arrived she had been able to throw Musk's knife better than Musk himself. Musk, who last night had given him a scant week in which to redeem the manteion
. The manteion might not be worth preserving, but the Outsider had told him to save it, so save it he must.
Now here was the pinch at last. What was he going to do today? Because there was no time to waste, none at all. He must get more time from Blood today-somehow-or acquire most or all of that enormous sum.
Pie slapped his trousers pocket. Hyacinth's needler was still there. Kneeling, he pulled the cashbox from beneath his bed, unlocked it, and took out the azoth; with the azoth under his tunic he relocked the cashbox, replaced the key, and returned the empty box to its hiding place.
"Sabered Sphigx," he murmured, "remember your servants, who live or die by the sword." It was a Guardsman's prayer, but it seemed to him that it suited him at least as well.
Chenille was waiting in the garden when Silk, preceded by Maytera Rose and followed by Maytera Marble and little Maytera Mint, emerged from the side door of the manteion. Oreb called, "Good Silk!" from her shoulder and hopped over to perch on his; but Maytera Rose's back was to him, so that he missed her expression-if in fact she had noticed the living bird.
Maytera Marble said, "I thought of inviting you to join us, Chenille, but you were sleeping so soundly. . . ."
Chenille smiled. "I'm glad you didn't, Maytera. I was terribly tired. I peeked in on you later, though. I hope you didn't see me."
"Did you really?" Maytera Marble smiled in return, her face lifted and her head cocked slightly to the right. "You should have joined us then. It would have been all right."
"I had Oreb, and he was frightened. You had reached the anamnesis, anyway."
Silk nodded to himself. There was nothing of Kypris in Chenille's face now, and the already-hot sunshine was cruel to it; but Chenille would not know that term. He said, "I hope that Chenille wasn't too much of a bother to you last night, Maytera?"
"No, no. None at all. None. But you'll have to excuse me now. The children will be arriving before long. I have to unlock, and look over the lesson."
As they watched her hurry away, Chenille said, "I make her nervous, I'm afraid. She'd like to like me, but she's afraid I've corrupted you."
"You make me nervous, too, Chenille," Silk admitted. As he spoke, both of them noticed Maytera Mint, waiting with downcast eyes in the diffused shade of the arbor. Softening his voice, Silk inquired, "Was there something you wished to speak to me about, Maytera?" She shook her head without looking up. "Perhaps you wanted to say farewell to your guest; but to tell the truth, I'm not sure she won't have to stay with you and your sibs tonight, as well."
For the first time since Silk had met her, Maytera Mint actually startled him, stepping out of the shadows to stare up into Chenille's face with a longing he could not quite fathom. "You don't make me nervous," she said, "and that's what I wanted to say to you. You're the only grown-up who doesn't. I feel drawn to you."
"I like you, too," Chenille said quietly. "I like you very much, Maytera."
Maytera Mint nodded, a nod (Silk thought) of acceptance and understanding. "I must be fifteen years older than you are. More, perhaps-I'll be thirty-seven next year. And yet I feel that- Perhaps it's only because you're so much taller ..."
"Yes?" Chenille inquired gently.
"That you're really my older sister. I've never had an older sister, really. I love you." And with that, Maytera Mint whirled with a swirl of black bombazine and hurried off toward the cenoby, swerved suddenly halfway down the path, and cut across the dry, brown lawn toward the palaestra, on the other side of the playground.
"Bye-bye!" Oreb called. "Bye, girl!"
Silk shook his head. "I would never have expected that. The whorl holds possibilities beyond my imagining."
"Too bad." Chenille sighed. "I have to tell you. To explain. Silk. Patera. We ought to be talking about the other thing. Getting money from Crane. But I ... We've a problem. There with poor Maytera Mint. It's my doing. In a way."
Silk said, "I hope it's not a serious problem. I like her, and I feel responsible for her."
"So do I. Still, we may. We do, I know. Perhaps we could go back to your little house? And talk?"
Silk shook his head. "Women aren't supposed to enter a manse, although there are a whole string of exceptions - when an augur's ill, a woman may come in to nurse him, for example. When I want to talk with Maytera Marble, we do it here in the arbor, or in her room in the palaestra." "All right." Chenille ducked beneath the drooping grape vines. "What about Maytera Mint? And the old one, Maytera Rose? Where do you talk to them?"
"Oh, in the same places." With a slight pang of guilt, Silk took the old wooden seat across from Chenille's; it was the one in which Maytera Marble normally sat. "But to tell you the truth, I seldom talk very long with either of them. Maytera Mint is generally too shy to reply, and Maytera Rose lectures me." He shook his head. "I should listen to her much more closely than I do, I'm afraid; but after five or ten minutes I can't think of anything except getting away. I don't intend to imply that either isn't a very good woman. They are."
"Maytera Mint is." Chenille licked her lips. "That's why I feel bad. As I do. Silk. It was . . . Well, not me. Not Chenille."
"Of course!" Silk nodded vigorously. "She senses the goddess in you! I should've understood at once. You don't want her to tell-"
"No, no. She does, but it's not that. And she won't tell anybody. She doesn't know herself. Not consciously."
Silk cleared his throat. "If you feel that there may be some physical attraction-I'm aware that these things take place among women as they do among men-it would certainly be better if you slept elsewhere tonight."
Chenille waved the subject away. "It wouldn't matter. But it's not that. She doesn't want . . . She doesn't want anything. Anything from me. She wants to help. Give me things. I understand it. It's not . . . discreditable. Is that what you'd say? Discreditable?"
"I suppose it is."
"But all this ... It doesn't matter. None of it. I'm going to have to tell you. More. I won't lie." Her eyes flashed. "I won't!"
"I wouldn't want you to," Silk assured her. "Yes. Yes, you do, Silk. Silk. Possession, you . . . We talked about it last night. You think a god . . . Me? I mean Kypris. Or another one. That horrible woman with the snakes. You think we go into people. Like fevers?" "I certainly would not have put it like that." Chenille studied him hungrily through heavy-lidded eyes that seemed larger than they had been outside the arbor, dark eyes that glowed with their own light. "But you think it. I know. We ... It goes in through the eyes. We gods aren't. . . Something you see? We're patterns. We change. Learning and growing. But still patterns? And I'm not Kypris. I told you that. . . . You thought I lied." Oreb whistled. "Poor girl!" And Silk, who had turned away from the frightful power and craving of those dark eyes, saw that they had begun to weep. He offered his handkerchief, recalling that Maytera Marble had given him hers, here under the arbor, before he had gone to Blood's villa.
"I didn't. I don't. Not much. Not unless I've got to. And I'm not. But what you call possession- Kypris copied a part, just a little part of herself." Chenille blew her nose softly. "I haven't had one little sniff. Not since before Orpine's .. . This's what it does, Patera. Not getting it, I mean. Everything you look at you think, that's not rust, and everything's so sad."
"It will be over very quickly," Silk said, hoping that he was right.
"A week. Maybe two. I did it, one other time. Only . . . Never mind. I wouldn't. I won't now. If you had a whole cup full of rust and held it out for me to take as much as I wanted right now, I wouldn't take any."
"That's wonderful," he said, and meant it. "And that's because of the pattern. The little piece of Kypris that she's put inside of me, through my eyes, in your manteion yesterday. You don't understand, do you? I know you don't."
"I don't understand about the patterns," Silk said. "I understand the rest, or at least I believe" I do."
"Like your heart. Patterns of beats. Yes, yes, no, no, no, yes, yes. There's this thing behind everybody's eyes. I don't understand everything myself.
The mechanical woman? Marble? Somebody too clever learned he could do it to them. Change programs in little ways. People made machines. Just to do that. So that people like Maytera Marble would work for them instead of for the State. Steal for them. He...? Pas, you call him. He had people study it. And they found out that you could do something like it with people. It was harder. The frequency was much higher. But you could, and so we do. That was how it all began. Silk. Through the terminals, through their eyes."
"Now I am lost," Silk admitted.
"It doesn't matter. But it's flashes of light. Light no one else can see. The thuds, the pulses, making up the program, the god that runs in Mainframe. Kypris is the god, that program. But she closed her eyes. Mint did. Maytera Mint. And I wasn't through, it wasn't finished."
Silk shook his head. "I know this must be important, and I'm trying to understand it; but to tell you the truth, I have no idea of what you mean."
"Then I'll lie." Chenille edged toward him until her knees touched his. "I'll lie, so that you can understand, Patera. Listen to me now. I ... Kypris wanted to possess Maytera Mint-never mind why." "You're Chenille now."
"I'm always Chenille. No, that's not right. Lying, I'm Kypris. All right, then. I'm Kypris now, talking the way Chenille used to. Say yes."
Silk nodded, "Yes, Great Goddess."
"Fine. I wanted to possess Maytera Mint by sending my divine person flowing into her, through her eyes, from the Sacred Window. See?"
Silk nodded again. "Certainly."
"I knew you'd understand. If it was wrong. All right. It feels good, really good, so practically nobody ever shuts their eyes. They want it. They want more. They don't even blink, drinking it in."
Silk said, "It's wholly natural for human beings to want some share of your divine life, Great Goddess. It's one of our deepest instincts."
"Only she did, and that's what you've got to understand. She only got a piece of me-of the goddess. I can't even guess what it may do to her."
Silk slumped, stroking his cheek.