by Gene Wolfe
Still pressing the cloth to his face, Auk shook his head.
There was someone nearer the burning structure, whatever it
was: a short stocky figure with one arm in a sling. Others, men with
dark and strangely variegated skins... Auk blinked and looked
again.
They were soldiers, chems that he had sometimes seen in parades.
Here they lay dead, their weapons beside them, eerily lit by the
flames.
A small figure in black materialized from the gloom and gave him
a toothy grin. "_I_ had sped you to the _gods_, my son. I see _they_
sent you back."
Through the cloth, Auk managed to say, "I don't remember
meeting any," then recalled that he had, that Scylla had been their
companion for the better part of two days, and that she had not
been in the least as he had imagined her. He risked removing the
cloth. "Come here, Patera. Have a seat. I got to have a word with you."
"Gladly. _I_ must speak with _you_, as well." The little augur lowered
himself to the shiprock floor. Auk could see the white gleam of his teeth.
"Was that really Scylla?"
"_You_ know better than _I_, my son."
Auk nodded slowly. His head ached, and the pain made it
difficult to think. "Yeah1 only I don't know. Was it her, or just a
devil pretending?"
Incus hesitated, grinning more toothily than ever. "This is rather
difficult to explain."
"I'll listen." Auk groped his waistband for his needler; it was still in
place.
"My son, if a devil were to _personate_ a goddess, it would become
that goddess, in a way."
Auk raised an eyebrow.
"Or that _god_. Pas, let us say, or _Hierax_. It would run a grave risk
of merging into the total god. Or so the science of _theodaimony_
teaches us."
"That's abram." His knife was still in his boot as well, his hanger at
his side.
"Such are the _facts_, my son." Incus cleared his throat impressively.
"That is to say, the facts as far as they can be expressed in purely
_human_ terms. It's there averred that devils do not often dare to
personate the gods for _that very reason_, while the immortal gods, for
their part, _never_ stoop to personating devils."
"Hoinbuss," Auk said. The man with the injured arm was circling
the fire. Changing the subject, Auk asked, "That's our talus, ain't it?
The soldiers got it?"
The unfamiliar voice said, "That's right, we got it."
Auk turned. There was a soldier squatting behind him.
"I'm Auk," Auk said; he had reintroduced himself to Chenille with
the same words, he remembered, before whatever had happened
had happened. He offered his hand.
"Corporal Hammerstone, Auk." The soldier's grip stopped just
short of breaking bones.
"Pleased." Auk tried to stand, and would have fallen if Hammerstone
had not caught him. "Guess I'm still not right."
"I'm a little rocky myself, trooper."
"Dace and _that young woman_ have been after me to have
Corporal Hammerstdne carry you, my son. I've _resisted_ their
importunities for his sake. He would _gladly_ do it if I asked. He and I
are the _best of friends_."
"More than friends," Hammerstone told Auk; there was no hint of
humor in his voice. "More than brothers."
"He would do _anything_ for me. I'm tempted to _demonstrate_ that,
though I refrain. I prefer you to think about it for a while, always
with some element of _doubt_. Perhaps I'm teasing you, merely
_blustering_. What do you think?"
Auk shook his head. "What I think don't matter.
"Exactly. Because you _thought_ that you could throw me from that
filthy little boat with _impunity_. That I'd _drown_, and you would be
well rid of me. We see _now_, don't we, how _misconceived_ that was.
You have fodeited any right to have your opinions heard with the
_slightest_ respect."
Chenille strode out of the darkness carrying a long weapon with a
cylindrical magazine. "Can you walk now, Hackum? We've been
waiting for you."
From his perch on the barrel, Oreb added, "All right?"
"Pretty soon," Auk told them. "What's that you got?"
"A launcher gun." Chenille grounded it. "This is what did for our
talus, or that's what we think. Stony showed me how to shoot it.
You can look, but don't touch."
Although pain prevented Auk from enjoying the joke, he managed,
"Not till I pay, huh?"
She grinned wickedly, making him feel better. "Maybe not even
then. Listen here, Patera. You too, Stony. Can I tell all of you what
I've been thinking?"
"Smart girl!" Oreb assured them.
Incus nodded; Auk shrugged and said, "I'm not getting up for a
while yet. C'mere, bird."
Oreb hopped onto his shoulder. "Bad hole!"
Chenille nodded. "He's right. We heard some real funny noises
while I was back there looking for something to shoot, and there's
probably more soldiers farther on. There's more lights up that way
too though, and that might help."
Hammerstone said, "Not if we want to dodge their patrols."
"I guess not. But the thing is, Oreb could say what he did about
anyplace down here, and he wouldn't be wrong. Auk, what I was
going to tell you is I used to have a cute little dagger that I strapped
onto my leg. It had a blade about as long as my foot, and I thought it
was just right. I thought your knife or your needler or whatever
should fit you, like shoes. You know what I'm saying?"
He did not, but he nodded nevertheless.
"Remember when I was Scylla?"
"It's whether you remember. That's what I want to know."
"I do a little bit. I remember being Kypris, too, maybe a little
better. You didn't know about that, did you, Patera? I was. I was
them, but underneath I was still me. I think it's like a donkey feels
when somebody rides him. He's still him, Snail or whatever his
name is, but he's you, too, going where you want to and doing what
you want to do. And ifhe doesn't want to, he gets kicked till he does
it anyhow."
Oreb cocked his head sympathetically. "Poor girl!"
"So pretty soon he gives up. Kick him and he goes, pull up and
he stops, not paying a lot of attention either way. It was like that
with me. I wanted rust really bad, and I kept thinking about it
and how shaggy tired I was. And all at once it was like I'd been
dreaming. I was in a manteion in Limna, then up on an altar in a
cave and fit for sod. And I didn't remember anything. or if I did I
wouldn't think about it. But when I was bumping out to the
shrine, up on those high rocks, stuff started coming back. About
being Kypris, I mean."
Incus sighed. "_Scylla_ mentioned it, my daughter, so I did know.
Sharing your _body_ with the _goddess of love!_ How I _envy_ you!
It must have been _wonderful!_"
"I guess it was. It wasn't nice. It wasn't fun at all. But the more I
think, the more I think it really was wonderful in a abram sort of
way. I'm not exactly like I used to be, either. I think when they left,
the
goddesses must have left some crumbs behind, and maybe they
took some with them, too."
She picked up the launcher, running her fingers along the pins
protruding from its magazine. "What I started to say was that after
the talus got hit I saw I'd been wrong about things fitting, my dagger
and all that. This stuff isn't really like shoes at all. The smaller
somebody is, the bigger a shiv she needs. Scylla left that behind, I
think, or maybe something I could use to see it myself.
"Anyway, Auk here plucks a dimber needler, but I doubt he
needs it much. If I lived the way he does, and I chose to do, I'd need
it just about every day. So I found this launcher gun, and it's bigger.
It was empty, but I found another one with the barrel flat where the
talus had gone over it, and it was full. Stony showed me how you
load and unload them."
Auk said, "I think I'll get something myself, a slug gun, anyhow.
There's probably a bunch of 'em lying around."
Incus shook his head and reached for Auk's waist. "You'd better
allow me to take your needler this time, my son."
At once Auk's arms were pinned from behind by a grip that was
quite literally of steel.
With evident distaste, Incus lifted the front of Auk's tunic and
took his needler from his waistband. "This wouldn't harm Corporal
Hammerstone, but it would _kill_ me, I suppose." He gave Auk a
toothy smile. "Or _you_, my son."
"No shoot," Oreb muttered; it was a moment or two before Auk
understood that he was addressing Chenille.
"If you see him with a _slug gun_, Corporal, you're to take it from
him and break it _immediately_. A slug gun or any other such
weapon."
"_Ahoy! Ahoy there!_" The old fisherman was shouting and waving,
silhouetted by orange flames from the burning talus. "_He says he's
dyin'! Wants to talk to us!_"
Silk lifted himself until he could sit almost comfortably upon the
turret, then waved both hands. His face was smeared with the mud
of the storm, mud that was cracking and falling away now; the gaudy
tunic that Doctor Crane had brought him in Limna was daubed with
mud as well, and he wondered how many of those who waved and
cheered and jumped and shouted around the floater actually
recognized him.
_SILK FOR CALDE!_
_SILK FOR CALDE!_
Was there really to be a calde again, and was this new calde to be
himself? Calde was a title that his mother had mentioned occasionally,
a carved head in her closet.
He looked up Sun Street, then stared. That was, surely, the
silver-gray of a Sacred Window, nearly lost in the bright sunshine--a
Window in the middle of the street.
The wind carried the familiar odor of sacrifice--cedar smoke,
burning fat, burning hair, and burning feathers, the mixture stronger
than that of hot metal, hot fish-oil, and hot dust that wrapped
the floater. Before the silver shimmer of the Window, a black sleeve
slid down a thin arm of gray metal, and a moment later he caught
sight of Maytera Marble's shining, beloved face below the waving,
flesh-like hand. It seemed too good to be true.
"_Maytera!_" In the tumult of the crowd he could scarcely hear his
own voice; he silenced them with a gesture, arms out, palms down.
"_Quiet! Quiet, please!_"
The noise diminished, replaced by the troubled bleating of sheep
and the angry hissing of geese; as the crowd parted before the
floater, he located the animals themselves.
"Maytera! You're holding a viaggiatory sacrifice?"
"Maytera Mint is! I'm helping!"
"Patera!" Gulo was back, trotting alongside the floater, his black
robe fallow with dust. "There are dozens of victims, Patera! Scores!"
They would have to sacrifice alternately if the ceremony were not
to be prolonged till shadelow--which was what Gulo wanted, of
course; the glory of offering so many victims, of appearing before so
large a congregation. Yet he was not (as Silk reminded himself
sharply) asking for more than his due as acolyte. Furthermore, Gulo
could begin immediately, while he, Silk, would have to wash and
change. "Stop," he called to the driver. "Stop right here." The floater
settled to the ground before the altar.
Silk swung his legs from the turret to stand at the edge of the deck
before it, admonished by a twinge from his ankle.
"_Friends!_" A voice he felt he should recognize at once, shrill yet
thrilling, rang from the walls of every building on Sun Street. "This is
Patera Silk! This is the man whose fame has brought you to the
poorest manteion in the city. To the Window through which the
gods look upon Viron again!"
The crowd roared approval.
"Hear him! Recall your holy errand, and his!"
Silk, who had identified the speaker at the fourth word, blinked
and shook his head, and looked again. Then there was silence, and
he had forgotten what he had been about to say.
An antlered stag among the waiting victims (an offering to
Thelxiepeia, the patroness of divination, presumably) suggested an
approach; his fingers groped for an ambion. "No doubt there are
many questions you wish to ask the gods concerning these unsettled
times. Certainly there are many questions I need to ask. Most of all,
I wish to beg the favor of every god; and most of all to beg Stabbing
Sphigx, at whose order armies march and fight, for peace. But
before I ask the gods to speak to us, and before I beg their favor, I
must wash and change into suitable clothes. I've been in a battle,
you see--one in which good and brave men died; and before I
return to our manse to scrub my face and hands and throw these
clothes into the stove, I must tell you about it."
They listened with upturned faces, eyes wide.
"You must have wondered at seeing me in a Guard floater. Some
of you surely thought, when you saw our floater, that the Guard
intended to prevent your sacrifice. I know that, because I saw you
drawing weapons and reaching for stones. But you see, these
Guardsmen have endorsed a new government for Viron."
There were cheers and shouts.
"Or as I should have said, a return to the old one. They wish us to
have a calde--"
"_Silk is calde!_" someone shouted.
"--and a return to the forms laid down in our Charter. I
encountered some of these brave and devout Guardsmen in Limna,
and because I was afraid we might be stopped by other units of the
Guard, I foolishly suggested that they pretend I was their prisoner.
Many of you will have anticipated what happened as a result. Other
Guardsmen attacked us, thinking that they were rescuing me." He
paused for breath.
"Remember that. Remember that you must not assume that every
Guardsman you see is our enemy, and remember that even those
who oppose us are Vironese." His eyes sought out Maytera Marble
again. "I've lost my keys, Maytera. Is the garden gate unlocked? I
should be able to get into the manse that way."
She cupped her hands (hands that might have belonge
d to a bio
woman) around her mouth. "I'll open it for you, Patera!"
"Patera Gulo, proceed with the sacrifice, please. I'll join you as
soon as I can."
Clumsily, Silk vaulted from the floater, trying to put as much
weight as he could on his sound left leg; at once he found himself
sunounded by well-wishers, some of them in green Civil Guard
uniforms, some in mottled green conflict armor, most in bright
tunics or flowing gowns, and more than a few in rags; they touched
him as they might have touched the image of a god, in speeches
blurted in a second or two declared themselves his disciples,
partisans, and supporters forever, and carried him along like the
rush of a rain-swollen river.
Then the garden wall was at his elbow, and Maytera Marble at the
gate waving to him while the Guardsmen swung the butts of the slug
guns to keep back the crowd. A voice at his ear said, "I shall come
with you, My Calde. Always now, you must have someone to
protect you." It was the captain with whom he had breakfasted at
four in the morning in Limna.
The garden gate banged shut behind them; on the other side
Maytera Marble's key grated in the lock. "Stay here," the captain
ordered a Guardsman in armor. "No one is to enter." He turned
back to Silk, pointed toward the cenoby. "Is that your house, My
Calde?"
"No. It's over there. The triangular one." Belatedly. he realized
that it did not appear triangular from the garden; the captain would
think him mad. "The smaller one. Patera Gulo won't have locked
the door. Potto got my keys."
"Councillor Potto, My Calde?"
"Yes, Councillor Potto." Yesterday's pain rushed back: Potto's
fists and electrodes, Sand's black box. Scrupulous answers that
brought further blows and the electrodes at his groin. Silk pushed
the memories away as he limped along the graveled path, the
captain behind him and five troopers behind the captain, passing the
dying fig in whose shadow the animals that were to die for Orpine's
spirit had rested, the arbor in which he had spoken to Kypris and
chatted with Maytera Marble, her garden and his own blackberries
and wilting tomato vines, all in less time than his mind required to
recognize and love them.
"Leave your men outside, Captain. They can rest in the shade of
the tree beside the gate if they like." Were they doomed, too? From
the deck of the floater he had talked of Sphigx; and those who