by Gene Wolfe
The fifth-floor door she opened for him was five fingers thick, old and losing its varnish flake by flake but still sturdy. As he followed her into the darkness beyond it, he reflected that the room she called hers had surely been a storeroom originally. She snapped her fingers to kindle the bleared green light on its ceiling, and he saw that it still was. Boxes and barrels stood in its corners and against its walls, and metal bars, drills and files, spools of wire, and bits of cannibalized machinery littered the floor. He said, "This is where your father finished making you."
"Where we work on… Where we work on me." She had taken a pale figurine, a half bottle of wine, and a clean white cloth from some crevice among the boxes; unfolding the cloth disclosed the small loaf she had taken from the kitchen. She spread the cloth on the floor and arranged the other items on it.
He said, "You'll have to tell me how Silk sacrifices these things for you. We don't have a fire."
"The wine is the blood… The wine is the blood, Patera. The bread is the… The bread is the meat."
He began to protest, but thought better of it and traced the sign of addition over them, then looked up to see that Olivine was holding a book. "Is that the Chrasmologic Writings?"
"I keep it here… For you."
To his own surprise, he discovered that he was smiling. "I pointed out that we have no fire, Olivine. With equal or greater relevance, I might have said that we have no Sacred Window. But we can consult gods anyway, thanks to you, and perhaps they'll be in that book for us, as they are sometimes. Afterwards, I'll talk to you a little, if I may; then I'll sacrifice as you wish. Is that all right?"
She nodded, kneeling.
The Writings were small and shabby-the sort of copy, he thought, that a student might use in the schola. He opened them at random.
" `There, where a fountain's gurgling waters play, they rush to land, and end in feast the day: they feed; then quaff; and now (their hunger fled) sigh for their friends and mourn the dead; nor cease their tears till each in slumber shares a sweet forgetfulness of human cares. Now far the night advances her gloomy reign, and setting stars roll down the azure plain: At the voice of Pas wild whirlwinds rise, and clouds and double darkness veil the skies.' "
It was customary to observe a few seconds of silence when a pas sage from the Writings had been read; it seemed a blessing now, although it could hardly be called silent, so beset was it with swirling thoughts.
"What does that mean, Patera…?"
"I can't possibly tell you everything it means. The meanings of every passage in the Writings are infinite." (It was a stock reply.) "As for what it means to us here tonight-well, I'll try. It begins by telling us plainly that it concerns our immediate situation. `Where a fountain's waters play,' must refer to my bath, for which I thank you again. `There' presumably designates this palace, since I bathed here. `They rush to land' refers to your impatience, when you wished me to end my bath and come up here with you."
"The gods are mad at… The gods are mad at me?"
"At you?" He shook his head. "I doubt it very much. I would say that they are offering a gentle and somewhat humorous correction, as a parent corrects a beloved child." He paused to collect his thoughts, glancing down at the book. "Next is, `And end in feast the day.' You want me to sacrifice this bread and wine, and the day has indeed ended, which assures us that our sacrifice is what is meant. `Feast' is probably ironic. We have no animal to offer-no real meat. We should eat a little of the bread, of course, so that it will be a shared meal. Or at least I should. And-"
"Drink some wine… Drink some wine, too," she suggested. "You always do… You always do that."
"Silk does? I'm not Silk, as I've explained several times. My name is Patera Horn-or rather just Horn, though I feel like an augur in these clothes. Now, where were we?"
"About you drinking the wine… About you drinking the wine, Patera."
He was tempted to insist she call him Horn, but this was not the moment for it. He nodded instead. "You say Silk does, and that accounts for the word quaff in the next section, `They feed; then quaff; and now (their hunger fled) sigh for their friends and mourn the dead.' With this it would appear that the god who speaks to us has moved from our present situation to prophesy. I will sacrifice for you, the god says, and satisfy my hunger with your bread and wine. After that, we will mourn dead friends. At present I have no idea who these friends are, but no doubt it will be made clear to us when the time comes. Have you friends who are no longer with us, Olivine?"
"I don't think… I don't think so."
"My adopted son, Krait, is dead. He may be meant. Or someone like my late friend Scleroderma. We'll see."
He looked at the book again. " `Nor cease their tears till each in slumber shares a sweet forgetfulness of human cares.' We will sleep then-so it appears. I know that you chems sleep at times, Olivine. Are you going to sleep tonight?"
"If you say… If you say to."
"Not I, but the gods. You should at least consider it. I will sleep, surely, if I can."
"My father told me to sleep while he was… My father told me to sleep while he was gone."
"But you didn't?"
"Over… Over there." She pointed to the window. "Where I could see… Where I could see out?"
"I didn't know you could sleep standing up."
"If I can… If I can lean. But I saw… But I saw you."
"In the street below. You have good eyes."
"I can't shut… I can't shut them." There were tears in the thick voice. "The… The rest?"
"You're right. It's my duty to explain it, not to gossip about sleeping habits." He looked down at the Writings once more, re-read the passage and closed the book. "This is by no means easy. Presumably it reflects the gods' concern for us. `Now far the night advances her gloomy reign, and setting stars roll down the azure plain: At the voice of Pas wild whirlwinds rise, and clouds and double darkness veil the skies.' "
"Stars… Stars, Patera?"
"Tiny lights in the night sky," he explained absently. "We have them on Blue. You have them here, too, in a sense; but you cannot see them because they're outside the whorl. This is a difficult passage, Olivine. Why this mention of stars, when our sacrifice is taking place in the Long Sun Whorl?"
She stared at him, and although he could not discern her expression he could feel her expectancy.
"I believe it is what is called a signature; that is, a sign by which the god who has favored us identifies himself. Most frequently, signatures take the form of an animal-a vulture for Hierax, for example, or a deer for Thelxiepeia."
"There weren't… There weren't any…"
"No, there weren't. No animal of any sort was mentioned."
He fell silent for almost half a minute, struggling with his conscience. "In honesty I must tell you that a real augur would say this passage was inspired by Pas. We have his image, to begin with; and when a god is mentioned by name, he or she is assumed to have inspired the passage. That's not invariably correct, however, and I don't believe it is in this case. The stars, which at first seem so out of place, are outside this whorl as I told you. As objects found outside it-and only outside it-they may well be signatures of the Outsider, as I feel quite sure they were in a dream I had long ago." He waited for her to protest, but she did not.
"There were horses in my dream, and horses are said to be signatures of Scylla's; but I've never felt the dream came from her. So let us look at the stars, as my wife and I used to do so often when we were younger." He tried to smile.
" `Setting stars roll down the azure plain.' The azure plain is the sky-the sky by day, as we see it on Blue. Notice that azure itself is a shade of blue."
Olivine nodded.
"Since the stars are setting on Blue, we are warned that the influence of the Outsider will diminish there, though Blue, also, lies outside this whorl."
"Is that… Is that bad?"
"For the people there it is beyond doubt, and I believe I can guess why it's h
appening. Last night I was told by a godling that no more colonists are to leave for Blue or Green-that enough have gone, and everyone who is still here is to remain."
"I didn't know… I didn't know that."
"Very few people can. I was told to proclaim it, but I have not done so. At least, not yet."
He was silent again, recalling New Viron and Pajarocu. "We have very little respect for any god on Blue, Olivine. Little piety, hence little decency. Wealth is our god-land and cards and gold. What little reverence for the gods we have is found only in the newest colonists, who bring it with them. On Blue they tend to lose it. The Outsider, who is little regarded here, is virtually forgotten there."
"Don't cry… Don't cry, Patera…"
"I used to upbraid myself, Olivine, because I paid him no proper honor. Once a year, perhaps, I tried to make some gesture of regard. Nobody else, not even my own sons-well, never mind." He wiped his face on the wide sleeve of his robe. "Your mother still honors the gods. I must mention that."
"Do you know… Do you know her?"
"Yes, I do. I saw her and spoke with her before I went to Green. I've hesitated to tell you so because-because-"
Olivine reached across the cloth; small, hard fingers sheathed in something that appeared to be flesh closed on his.
"She has gone blind."
The fingers relaxed; the thin metal arm fell to her side.
"She is well otherwise, and I-I feel absolutely certain she would send her love to you, if she knew of your existence. But she is blind now, like my friend Pig. To tell you the truth, I sometimes think that Pig may have been sent to me so that I wouldn't forget your mother."
He waited for some word, some comment.
"You'll say it was the judgment of the gods, I'm sure." He cleared his throat. "The judgment of the gods, for abandoning you, as she did in obedience to the gods. But I love her and can't help pitying her. She gave me one of her eyes-a blind eye, of course. They are both blind. But she gave me one in the hope that I might find working eyes for her when I got here. I've lost it. At least, it isn't in my pocket anymore."
He ceased to speak, and the silence of the Calde's Palace closed around them. There had been someone-a cook-in the kitchen, he told himself. There had been a gardener in the garden outside. Bison was calde now, so he and Maytera Mint, who must have renounced her vows to become his wife, lived in this high and secretive building. Yet it seemed that no one did, that not even the shrouded figure across the cloth from him was truly alive, and that the emptiness that had grasped all Viron had its center here.
"Lost… Lost it?" The thick, soft voice might almost have been that of the wind in a chimney.
He told himself he had to speak, and did. "Yes, I have. It's back on Green, I suppose." He wanted to say, "With my bones," but substituted, "With my ring, and other things."
The shrouded figure might not have heard.
"It wasn't any good, you understand. Not to her or to anyone else. She wanted me to have it so that I would know what one looked like."
"I'm… I'm lucky."
He was not certain he had heard her correctly, and said, "I beg your pardon?"
"I don't work very well… I don't work very well, Patera."
"We all have failings. It's far better to-to have a bad leg or something of the sort than a propensity for evil."
"But my eyes are… But my eyes are fine. I can… I can see. You said… You said so. That's lucky… That's lucky, isn't it?"
"Yes, it certainly is. But, Olivine, you've let me get away from the subject again-from the passage that the god-that the Outsider, as I believe-chose for us. There's a colon in it. Do you know what a colon is? Not a semicolon, but a full colon? Two little dots, one above the other?"
She did not answer, and he floundered forward. "A colon is a very strong divider, Olivine, and colons are rarely found in the Writings. I believe-I'm guessing, to be sure, but this is what I believethat it's intended to separate that passage about the stars rolling down the azure sky from the next so that we will understand that they concern two whorls. Blue and this Long Sun Whorl are actually like two little dots themselves, you see, if you think of them from the Outsider's perspective. The higher dot is this whorl, which is farther from the Short Sun; and the lower dot is Blue."
He cleared his throat and searched his memory. "I've shut the book, but I believe I can still quote the passage accurately. It was, `At the voice of Pas wild whirlwinds rise, and clouds and double darkness veil the skies.' Pas himself is a wild whirlwind. That is to say, he's shown that way in art. The oldest representations of him show a swirling storm."
"I didn't know… I didn't know that. Is the other one… Is the other one-? You don't want me to say his… You-"
"Is he depicted as a whirlwind too? Is that what you're asking me?"
She nodded.
"No. But it's quite an intelligent question, now that I come to think about it. Pas is shown as a man with two heads, or a wind; so it's not unreasonable to think that he, who is shown as a man with four faces, might be depicted as a wind as well. He isn't, though. When a writer hesitates to set down his name-which isn't often, since so little has been written about him-he generally draws the sign of addition, a little straight mark with another little mark across it. I suppose that the idea now is that the god blesses us, though it may originally have been a diagram. Crossroads are associated with the god, as I believe I told you."
"I… I see."
"There's an interesting story about another god as a wind, however, and it may have some bearing on the passage in question. A certain man was hoping to have experience of the Outsider. He prayed and prayed, and a violent storm rose. At first he thought that this storm was the god, and rejoiced and shouted praise; but the storm only became more violent. Rain beat him like hail, and hail like stones. Water poured from the rocks all around, and trees were uprooted. Lightning struck the mountain on which he stood. Soon he grew terrified, and finding a little cave he hid himself and waited for the storm to pass.
"At last it did, and after it came the sun and a faint wind, a gentle breeze. And that faint wind, that gentle breeze, was the god whom he had sought."
Olivine did not speak.
"The point of the story, you see, is that Great Pas is not the Outsider. Gods often have several names and more than one personalityI was talking about this with friends not long ago-and it appears that at some time in the past people believed that the Outsider was merely another aspect of Pas. The story I just told you was probably written to show it was not the case.
"Now back to that passage. As I said, happenings in this whorl are intended-or so I would guess. Pas will manifest himself more than once, and angrily. `Wild whirlwinds' are to rise. Notice the plural."
"Will he hurt… Will he hurt us?"
"That I cannot say. We have been warned by the Outsider, however, and the Outsider is a god-indeed, he may be the best and wisest of all the gods-and thus is certainly a great deal wiser than we. If he didn't believe we needed a warning, I doubt that he would have provided it.
"Now the last, and I will be able to sacrifice this bread for you. `Clouds and double darkness veil the skies.' In one respect that is very plain. Double darkness must surely refer to the extinguishing of the Long Sun by night. Night is coming-" He glanced toward the window. "Is already here I ought to say. It may be several days before we see the day again."
"Maybe I'll go back to sleep when you leave… Maybe I'll go back to sleep when you leave, Patera."
"That might be wise." His forefinger traced circles on his right cheek. "Clouds? I can't make much of that. It may mean perfectly ordinary clouds, such as we see every day. It may also refer to the god's veiling the minds of those he intends to destroy. I cannot be sure. `Skies' presents the greatest puzzle of them all, at least to me. There have been two skies involved in the entire passage, as we have seen-the sky of Blue, and ours in this whorl. The plural must, I would think, refer to those two. The whirlwinds, clou
ds, and double darkness therefore refer not merely to this whorl, the Long Sun Whorl, but to Blue as well. It is dark on Blue each night, but how it can be doubly dark there I cannot imagine. An augur might give us a more exact interpretation, of course; it's a shame that there's no real augur present."
He uncorked the wine bottle. "Don't you have a glass for this, Olivine? And a knife to cut the bread?"
"I could get them… I could get them, but…" There was reluctance in the soft, thick voice that went beyond the usual reluctance to speak at all.
"But what? Please tell me."
"Father doesn't like me taking the… Father doesn't like me taking the things."
"I see. And you're not sure that Calde Bison even knows you're up here?"
She shook her head.
"Doubtless your father's right. It's better not to risk your being put out of the palace, though it would seem to me that you might make Calde Bison or General Mint a useful servant. Your father instructed you to sleep while he was away?"
She nodded again.
"I met my own father today. It was the first time I'd seen him in many years. I don't believe I told you."
"No, Patera…"
He smiled and shook his head. "I was walking up Sun Street, looking for the place where our shop used to be; and he asked whether he could help me. He had seen, I suppose, that I was trying to locate a particular spot."
The shiprock walls, washed almost clean by many rains, had been crumbling into the rectangular holes that had been their cellars; cracked shiprock steps returned to the parent sand and gravel before the empty doorways. He looked above each that he passed for the painted sign he recalled so well: SMOOTHBONE STATIONER. It had proved less durable than the soot.
"Maybe I can help you." The passerby was short and stocky; his baldness exaggerated his high forehead.
"If you knew this area before it burned."
The bald man nodded and pointed. "My place was right over there for years."
"Before the fire, there was a little shop that sold, oh, quills and paper, mostly. Ink, notebooks, and so on. Do you know where that was?"