Lake of the Long Sun tbotls-2

by Gene Wolfe

  "Now that's interesting. We ought to be able to talk about that for a long time. Did you see him?"

  Silk considered the question. "Not in the way I see you now, and in fact I feel sure it's impossible to see him like that. All visual representations of the gods are ultimately false, as I told Blood a few days ago; they're more or less appropriate, not more or less like. But the Outsider showed himself to me-his spirit, if one can speak of the spirit of a god-by showing me innumerable things he had done and made, people and animals and plants and myriad other things that he cares very much about, not all of them beautiful or lovable things to you, Doctor, or to me. Huge fires outside the whorl, a beetle that looked like a piece of jewelry but laid its eggs in dung, and a boy who can't speak and lives-well, like a wild beast.

  "There was a naked criminal on a scaffold, and we came back to that when he died, and again when his body was taken down. His mother was watching with a group of his friends, and when someone said he had incited sedition, she said that she didn't think he had ever been really bad, and that she would always love him. There was a dead woman who had been left in an alley, and Patera Pike, and it was all connected, as if they were pieces of something larger." Silk paused, remembering.

  "Let's get back to the god. Could you hear his voice?"

  "Voices," Silk said. "One spoke into each ear most of the time. One was very masculine-not falsely deep, but solid, as if a mountain of stone were speaking. The other was feminine, a sort of gentle cooing; yet both voices were his. When my enlightenment was over, I understood far, far better than I ever had before why artists show Pas with two heads, though I believe, too, that the Outsider had a great many more voices as well. I could hear them in back of me at times, although indistinctly. It was as if a crowd were waiting behind me while its leaders whispered in my ears; but as if the crowd was actually all one person, somehow: the Outsider. Do you want to comment?"

  Crane shook his head. "When both voices spoke at once, could you understand what they said?"

  "Oh, yes. Even when they were saying quite different things, as they usually did. The difficult thing for me to understand, even now-one of the difficult things, anyway-is that all of this took place in an instant. I think I told someone later that it seemed to last hundreds of years, but the truth is that it didn't occupy any amount of time at all. It took place during something else that wasn't time, something I've never known at any other time. That's badly expressed, but perhaps you understand what I mean."

  Crane nodded.

  "One of the boys-Horn, the best player we have-was reaching for a catch. He had his fingers almost on the ball, and then this took place outside of time. It was as if the Outsider had been standing in back of me all my life, but had never spoken until it was necessary. He showed me who he was and how he felt about everything he had made. Then how he felt about me, and what he wanted me to do. He warned me that he wouldn't help me. . . ." The words faded away; Silk pressed his palm to his forehead.

  Crane chuckled. "That wasn't very nice of him."

  "I don't believe it's a question of niceness," Silk said slowly. "It's a matter of logic. If I was to be his agent, as he asked-he never demanded anything. I ought to have emphasized that.

  "But if I was to be his agent, then he was doing it; he was preserving our manteion, because that was what he wanted me to do. He is preserving it through me. I'm the help he sent, you see; and you don't rescue the rescuer, just as you don't scrub a bar of soap or buy plums to hang on your plum tree. I said I'd try to do it, of course. I said I'd try to do whatever he wanted me to."

  "So then you sallied forth to save that run-down manteion on Sun Street? And that little house where you live, and the rest of it?"

  "Yes." Silk nodded, wished he had not, and added, "Not necessarily the buildings that are there now. If they could be replaced with new and larger buildings-Patera Remora, the coadjutor, hinted at that the other night-it would be even better. But that answers your question. That tells you whom I'm working for. Spying for, if you like, because I was spying on you."

  "For a minor god called the Outsider."

  "Yes. Correct. We were going-I was going to tell you that I knew you were a spy, the next time you came to treat my ankle. That I'd talked to people who'd provided you with information, without realizing why you wanted it, who'd carried messages for you and to you; and I'd seen a pattern in those things-I see it more clearly now, but I had seen it even then."

  Crane smiled and shook his head in mock despair. "So did Councillor Lemur, unfortunately." "I see other things, too," Silk told him. "Why you were at Blood's, for example; and why I encountered Blood's talus here in the tunnels."

  "We're not in the tunnels," Crane said absently, "didn't you hear me say that there's water all around us? We're in a sunken ship in the lake. Or to be a little more exact, in a ship that was built to sink, and to float to the surface on the captain's order. To swim underwater like a fish, if you can believe that. This is the secret capital of Viron. I'd be a wealthy man as well as a hero, if only I could get that information to my superiors back home."

  Silk slid from tlie cot and crossed the room to its steel door. It was locked, as he had expected, and there was no pane of glass or peephole through which he could look out. Suddenly conscious of the odor of his body and the smears of ash on his clothing, he asked, "Isn't there any way we can wash here?"

  Crane shook his head again. "There's a slop jar under the cot, if you want that."

  "No. Not now."

  "Then tell me why you cared whether I was a spy or not, if you weren't going to hand me over to the Ayuntamiento."

  "I was," Silk said simply, "if you wouldn't help me save our manteion from Blood. I was going to say that if you did that, I'd let you leave the city."

  He sat down in the corner farthest from the cot, finding the steel floor as cold and as hard as Crane had said. "But if you wouldn't, I planned to roll you over to the hoppies. That's the way the people of our quarter would say it, and I was working for them as well as for the Outsider, who wanted to save our manteion because he cares so deeply about them."

  He pulled off his shoes. "By 'hoppies' they mean the troopers of our Civil Guard. They say that the Guardsmen look like frogs, because of their green uniforms."

  "I know. Why did you go into the tunnels? Because I'd asked some people about them?"

  Silk was peeling off his stockings as he replied. "Not really. I didn't intend to enter the tunnels, although I'd heard of them vaguely-circles of black mechanics meeting there and so on, which they told us at the schola was a lot of nonsense. You and this wrapping you lent me had made it possible for me to walk out to Scylla's shrine on the lake. I went out there because Commissioner Simuliid had; and the person who told me that said you'd been interested to learn of it."

  "Chenille."

  "No." Silk shook his head, knowing that it would hurt, but eager to make his answer as negative as possible.

  "You know it was. Not that it matters. I was listening outside while you shrove her, by the way. I couldn't hear a lot, but I wish I'd heard that." "You couldn't have heard it, because it was never said. Chenille acknowledged her own transgressions, not yours." Silk removed the wrapping.

  "Have it your way. Did Blood's talus turn you over to Potto?"

  "It was more complicated than that," Silk hesitated. "I suppose it's imprudent for me to say it; but if Councillor Potto has someone listening to us, all the better-I want to get this off my conscience. I killed Blood's talus. I had to in order to preserve my own life; but I didn't like it, and I haven't come to like it any better since it happened."

  "With . . . ?"

  Silk nodded. "With an azoth I happened to have upon my person. It was later taken from me."

  "I've got you. Maybe we'd better not say anything else about that."

  "Then let's talk about this," Silk said, and held up the wrapping. "You very generously lent me this, and I've been as ungrateful as I could possibly be. You know my ex
cuse, which is that I was hoping to do what the Outsider had asked-to justify his faith in me, who in twenty-three years had never paid him even trifling honors. It wouldn't be right for me to keep this, and I'm grateful for this opportunity to return it."

  "I won't accept it. Is it cold now? It must be. Do you want me to recharge it for you?"

  "I want you to take it, Doctor. I would have extorted the money I need from you if I could. I deserve no favors from you."

  "You've never gotten any, either." Crane drew his legs onto the cot to sit cross-legged. "I didn't invent you, but I wish I had, because I'd like to take credit for you. You're exactly what we've needed. You're a rallying point for the underclass in Viron, and a city divided is a city too weak to attack its neighbors. Now recharge that thing and put it back on your ankle." "I never wished to weaken Viron," Silk told him. "That was no part of my task."

  "Don't blame yourself. The Ayuntamiento did the damage when they assassinated the calde and governed in defiance of your Charter and their people-which won't save your life when Lemur's finished with you. He'll kill you just like he'll kill me."

  Silk nodded ruefully. "Councillor Potto said something of the sort. I hoped-I still hope that it was no more than a threat. That he will no more kill me, despite his threat, than Blood would."

  "The situation is entirely different. You'd gone out to Blood's, and it seemed likely that others knew about it. If his talus caught you and dragged you into the tunnels, it's not likely that anybody else knows the Ayuntamiento has you. Not even the talus, since you say you killed it."

  "Only Mamelta, the woman who was captured with me."

  '"What's more," Crane said, "killing you would have made Blood much less secure. Killing you would make Lemur and the rest more secure. In fact, I'm surprised they haven't done it already. Who's Mamelta, by the way? One of those holy women?"

  "One of the people whom Pas put into the whorl when he had finished it. Did you know that some of them are still alive, though sleeping?"

  Crane shook his head. "Did he tell you that? Pas?"

  "No, she did. I had been captured by soldiers-I left the azoth behind when that happened, because I knew I'd be searched. A drift of ashes almost filled that tunnel, and I left it buried in them when the soldiers pulled me out."

  Crane grinned. "Shrewd enough."

  "It wasn't. Not really. I was going to say that one of the soldiers showed me the sleeping people and told me they had been there since the time of the first settlers. Mucor woke one, Mamelta, and I exorcised Mucor, as I told you."

  "Yes."

  "Mamelta and I got away from the soldiers-Hammerstone will be punished for that, I'm afraid-but we were arrested again when we went back for the azoth. They locked me up in a place worse than this one, and after a while they brought me my robe. Mamelta had been wearing it, so they must have given her proper clothing; at least, I hope they did." Silk paused, gnawing his lower lip. "I could have resisted the soldiers with the azoth, I suppose; it's quite possible that I would have killed them both. But I couldn't bring myself to do it."

  "Very creditable. But by the time you were rearrested Potto was there?"

  "Yes."

  "And he soon realized who you were."

  "I told him," Silk admitted. "That is to say, he asked my name, and I gave it. I would do it again. I'm a loyal citizen, as I assured him repeatedly."

  "I wonder if it's possible to be toyal while dead. But that's your bailiwick. The thing that interests me is that you escaped the first time, with this woman. Mind telling me how you reconciled that with your loyalty?"

  "I had an urgent matter to attend to," Silk said. "I won't go into detail now, but I did; and because I had done nothing wrong, I was morally justified in leaving when the opportunity presented itself."

  "But now you have? Are you a criminal deserving of death?"

  "No. My conscience isn't entirely clear, but the worst thing on it is that I've failed the Outsider. If I could get away again in some fashion-though that appears impossible now-it's conceivable that I might succeed after all."

  "Then you'd be willing to escape if we could?"

  "From an iron room with a locked door?" Silk ran his fingers through his untidy thatch of yellow hair. "How do you propose to do it, Doctor?"

  "We may not be here forever. Would you be willing?" "Yes. Certainly."

  "Then recharge your wrapping. We may have to run, and I hope we will. Go ahead, kick it or wallop the floor with it."

  Silk did as he had been told, flailing the steel plates. "If there's even the slightest chance to fulfill my pledge to the Outsider, I must take it; and I will. He'll surely bless you, as I do, for your magnanimity."

  "I won't bank on it." Crane smiled, and for a moment actually appeared cheerful. "You had a cerebral accident, that's all. Most likely a tiny vein burst as a result of your exertions during the game. When that happens in the right spot, delusions like yours aren't at all uncommon. Wernicke's area, it's called." He touched his own head to indicate the place.

  Chapter 12. LEMUR

  Silk knelt in silent prayer, his face to the gray-painted wall of the compartment.

  Marvelous Moipe, be not angry with me, who have always honored you. Music is yours. Am I never to hear it again? Recall my music box, Moipe, how many hours I spent with it when I was a child. It is in my closet now, Moipe, and if only you will free me I will oil the dancers and its works as well, and play it each night. I have searched my conscience, Moipe, to discover that in which I have displeased you. I find this: that I dealt overharshly with Mucor when she possessed Mamelta. Those whose wits are disordered and those who, though grown, remain as children are, are yours, I know, Moipe, and for your sake 1 should have been more gentle with her. Nor should I have called her a devil, for she is none. I renounce my pride, and I will separate Mucor from Blood if I can, and treat her as I would my own child. This I swear. A singing bird to you, Moipe, if you will but-

  Crane asked, "You don't think that stuff really helps, do you?"

  A singing bird to you, Moipe, if you will but set us free.

  Tenebrous Tartaros, be not angry with me, who have always honored you. Theft is yours, murder, and foul deeds done in darkness. Am I never again to walk freely the dark streets of my native city? Recall how I walked there with Auk, like me a thief. When I surmounted Blood's wall, you favored me, and I gladly paid the black lamb and the cock I swore. Recall that it was I who brought the Pardon of Pas to Kalan, and allow me to steal away now, Tartaros, and Doctor Crane with me. I will never forget, Tartaros, that thieves are yours and I am one. I have searched my conscience, Tartaros, to discover that in which I have displeased you. I find this: that I detested your darksome tunnels with all my heart, never thinking in my pride that you had sent me there, nor that they were a most proper place for such as I. I renounce my pride; if ever you send me there again, I will strive to be grateful, recalling your favors. This I swear. A score of black rats to you, Tartaros, if you will but set us free.

  Highest Hierax, be not angry with me, who have always honored you. Death is yours. Am I never to comfort the dying again? Recall my kindnesses to Pricklythrift, Shrub, Flax, Orpine, Bharal, Kalan, and Exmoor, Hierax. Recall how Exmoor blessed me with his dying breath, and forget not that it was I who slew the bird to whom blasphemers had given your name. If only you will free us, I will bring pardon to the dying all my life, and burial to the dead. I have searched my conscience, Hierax, to discover that in which I have displeased you. I find this: that-

  "I thought you fellows used beads."

  "Potto took them, as I told you," Silk said dispiritedly. "He took everything, even my glasses."

  "I didn't know you wore glasses."

  That when I beheld those who had died in the sleep into which Pas had cast them,, I did not propose their burial, or so much as offer a prayer for them; and when Mamelta and I found the bones of she who had carried a lantern, I in my pride took her lantern without interring her bones. I renounce m
y pride and will be ever mindful of the dead. This I swear. A black he-goat to you, Hierax, if you will but set us free.

  Enchanting Thelxiepeia, be not angry with me, who have always honored you. Prophesy and magic are yours. Am I never to cast the Thelxday lots again, nor to descry in the entrails of sacrifice the records of days to come? Recall that of the many sacrifices I offered for Orpine, for Auk, and for myself on Scylsday past, I read all save the bird's. I have searched my conscience, Thelxiepeia, to discover that in which I have displeased-

  Abruptly the room was plunged in such darkness as Silk had never known, not even in the ash-choked tunnel, a darkness palpable and suffocating, without the smallest spark or hint of light.

  Crane whispered urgently, "It's Lemur! Cover your head."

  Despondent, not knowing why he should cover it or what he might cover it with, Silk did not.

  I find this: that I sought no charm-

  The door opened; Silk turned at the sound in time to see someone who nearly filled the doorway enter. The door closed again with a solid thud, but no snick from the bolt.

  "Stand up, Patera." Councillor Lemur's voice was deep and rich, a resonant baritone. "I want both of you. Doctor, take this."

  A thump.

  "Pick it up."

  Crane's voice: "This is my medical bag. How did you get it?"

  Lemur laughed. (Silk, rising, felt an irrational longing to join in that laughter, so compellingly agreeable and good-natured was it.) "You think we're in the middle of the lake? We're still in the cave, but we'll be putting out shortly. I spoke to Blood and one of his drivers brought it, that's all. "Patera, I have some little presents for you, too. Take them, they're yours."

  Silk held out both hands and received his prayer beads and the gammadion and silver chain his mother had given him, the beads and chain in a single, tangled mass. "Thank you," he said.