by Gene Wolfe
would just have made them feel worse."
"I never liked working for anybody but me," Auk told him.
"You got to have somebody outside. Or anyhow I do. You feeling
pretty good now?"
"Better'n I did."
"I been watching you, 'cause that's what Patera wants. And you
can't hardly walk. You hit your head when the talus bought it, and
we figured you were KIA. Patera sort of liked it at first. Only then,
not so much. His essential nobility of character coming out. Know
what I'm saying?"
Dace put in, "That big gal cryin an' yellin' at him."
"Yeah, that too. Look here--"
"Wait a minute," Auk told them. "Chenille. She cried?"
Dace chuckled. "I felt sorrier fer her than fer you."
"She wasn't even there when I woke up!"
"She run off. I was over talkin' ter that talus, but I seen her."
"She was around when I came to," Hammerstone told Auk. "She
had that launcher, only it was empty. There was another one, all
smashed up, where we were. Maybe she brought it, I don't know.
Anyhow, after I talked to Patera about you and a couple other
things, I showed her how to disarm the bad one's magazine and load
the SSMs in the good one."
Dice told Hammerstone, "She got her'n up the tunnel whilst the
augur was fixin' you. This big feller, he was off watch, and didn't
nobody know rightly how bad he'd got hurt. When she come back
an' seen he wasn't comin' 'round, she foundered."
Auk scratched his ear.
"You've broke your head-bone, big feller, don't let nobody tell
you no different. I seen it afore. Feller on my boat got a rap from
the boom. He laid in the cuddy couple nights 'fore we could fetch
him ashore. He'd open the point an' talk, then sheer off down
weather. We fetched him the doctor an' I guess he done all he was
able but that feller died next day. You're in luck you wasn't hit no
worse."
"What makes it good luck?" Hammerstone asked him.
"Why, stands ter reason, don't it? He don't want ter be dead, no
more'n me!"
"All you meatheads talk like that. Only look at it. No more
trouble and no more work. No more patrols through these tunnels
looking everywhere for nothing and lucky to get a shot at a god. No
more--"
"Shot god?" Oreb inquired.
"Yeah," Auk said. "What the shag are you talking about?"
"That's just what we call them," Hammerstone explained.
"They're really animals. Kind of like a dog, only ugly where a real
dog's all right, so we say it backwards."
"I've never seen any kind of shaggy animal down here."
"You haven't been down here long, either. You just think you
have. There's bats and big blindworms, out under the lake especially.
There's gods all around here, only there's five of us and me a
soldier, and quite a few lights on this stretch. When we get to
someplace darker, watch out."
"You don't mind dyin'," Dace reminded him. "That's what you
says a little back."
"Now I do." Hammerstone pointed up the tunnel to Incus, a
hundred cubits ahead. "That's what I was trying to tell you. Auk said
he didn't need an outfit or a leader like Patera, or anything like that."
"I don't," Auk declared. "It's the shaggy truth."
"Then sit down right here. Go to sleep. Dace and me will keep
going. You feel pretty sick, I can tell. You don't like walking. Well,
there's no reason you've got to. I'll wait till we're about to lose sight
of you, then I'll put a couple slugs in you."
"No shoot!" Oreb protested.
"I'll wait till you've settled down, see? You won't know it's
coming. You'll get to thinking I'm not going to. What do you say?"
"No thanks."
"All right, here's what I been trying to get across. It doesn't
sound that good to you. If I kept on about it, you'd say you had to
take care of your girl, even when you're hurt so bad you can't
hardly take care of yourself. Or maybe look out for your talking
bird or something. Only it'd all be gas, 'cause you really don't
want to, even when you know it makes more sense than what
you're doing."
Sick and weak, Auk shrugged. "If you say so."
"It's not like that for us. Just sitting down somewhere down here
and letting everything slow down till I go to sleep, and sleeping, with
nobody ever coming by to wake me up, that sounds pretty good. It
would sound all right to my sergeant, too, or the major. The reason
we don't is we're supposed to look out for Viron. That means the
calde, 'cause he's the one that says what's good for Viron and what's
not."
"Silk's supposed to be the new calde," Auk remarked. "I know
him, and that's what Scylla said."
Hammerstone nodded. "That'll be great if it happens, but it hasn't
happened yet and maybe it never will. Only I've got Patera now,
see? Right now I can walk in back of him like this and keep looking
at him just about all the time, and he isn't even telling me not to
look like he did at first. So I don't want to sit down and die any more
than you do."
Oreb bobbed his approval. "Good! Good!"
Farther along the tunnel, Incus asked with some asperity, "Are you
_sure_ that's all, my daughter?"
"That's everything since Patera Silk shrived me, like I said,"
Chenille declared, "everything that I remember, anyhow." Apologetically
she added, "That was Sphixday, so there wasn't time for a lot, and you
said things I did when I was Kypris or Scylla don't count."
"Nor _do_ they. The gods _can_ do no evil. At least, not on _our_ level."
Incus cleared his throat and made sure that he was holding his
prayer beads correctly. "That being the case, I bring to you, my
daughter, the pardon of all the gods. In the name of _Lord Pas_, you
are forgiven. In the name of _Divine Echidna_, you are forgiven. In
the _glorious ever-efficacious_ name of _Sparkling Scylla, loveliest_ of
goddesses and _firstborn of the Seven and ineffable patroness_ of _this_,
our--"
"I'm not her any more, Patera. That's lily."
Incus, who had been seized by a sudden, though erroneous,
presentiment, relaxed. "You are forgiven. In the name of _Molpe_,
you are forgiven. In the name of _Tartaros_, you are forgiven. In the
name of _Hierax_, you are forgiven."
He took a deep breath. "In the name of _Thelxiepeia_, you are
forgiven. In the name of _Phaea_, you are forgiven. In the name of
_Sphigx_, you are forgiven. And in the name of _all lesser gods_,
you are forgiven. Kneel now, my daughter. I must trace the sign of addition
over your head."
"I'd sooner Auk didn't see. Couldn't you just--"
"_Kneel!_" Incus told her severely, and by way of merited discipline
added, "_Bow_ your head!" She did, and he swung his beads forward
and back, then from side to side.
"I hope he didn't see me," Chenille whispered as she got to her
feet, "I don't think he's jump for religion."
"I dare say _not_." Incus thrust his beads back into his pocket. "While
you _are_, my daughter? If that's so, you've
deceived me most
completely."
"I thought I'd better, Patera. Get you to shrive me, I mean. We
could've been killed back there when our talus fought the soldiers.
Auk just about was, and the soldiers could have killed us afterwards.
I don't think they knew we were on his back, and when he
caught fire they were afraid he'd blow up, maybe. If they'd been
right, we'd have got killed by that."
"They will return for their _dead_, eventually. I must say the
prospect _concerns_ me. What if we _encounter_ them?"
"Yeah. We're supposed to get rid of the councillors?"
Incus nodded. "So _you_, possessed by Scylla, instructed us, my
daughter. We are to displace _His Cognizance_ as well." Incus permitted
himself a smile, or perhaps could not resist it. "I am to have the office."
"You know what happens to people that go up against the
Ayuntamiento, Patera? They get killed or thrown in the pits. All of
them I ever heard of."
Incus nodded gloomily.
"So I thought I'd better get you to do it. Shrive me. I've got a day
left, maybe. That's not a whole lot of time."
"Women, and _augurs_, are usually spared the ignominy of execution,
my daughter."
"When they go up against the Ayuntamiento? I don't think so.
Anyhow, I'd be locked up in the Alambrera or tossed in a pit. They
eat the weak ones in the pits."
Incus, a full head shorter than she, looked up at her. "You've
_never_ struck me as _weak_, my daughter. And you _have_ struck me,
you know."
"I'm sorry, Patera. It wasn't personal, and anyhow you said it
doesn't count." She glanced over her shoulder at Auk, Dace, and
Hammerstone. "Maybe we'd better slow down, huh?"
"Gladly!" He had been hard put to keep up with her. "As I said,
my daughter, what you did to me is not to be accounted _evil. Scylla_
has every right to strike me, as a mother her child. Contrast that
with that man _Auk's_ behavior toward me. He seized me _bodily_ and
cast me into the lake."
"I don't remember that."
"_Scylla_ did not order it, my daughter. He acted upon his own _evil
impulse_, and were I to be asked to shrive him for it _again_, I am _far_
from confident I could bring myself to do so. Do you find him
attractive?"
"Auk? Sure."
"I confess _I_ thought him a fine specimen when I first saw him. His
features are _by no means_ handsome, yet his _muscular masculinity_ is
both real and impressive." Incus sighed. "One _dreams_...I mean _a
young woman_ such as yourself, my daughter, not infrequently
dreams of such a man. _Rough_, yet, one hopes, not entirely lacking
inner _sensitivity_. When the _actual object_ is encountered, however,
one is _invariably_ disappointed."
"He lumped me a couple of times while we were hoofing out to
that shrine. Did he tell you about that?"
"About visiting a _shrine?_" Incus's eyebrows shot up. "Auk and
yourself? No _indeed_."
"Lumping me, I meant. I thought maybe... Never mind. Once I
sat down on one of those white rocks, and he kicked me. Kicked my
leg, you know. I got pretty sore about that."
Incus shook his head, dismayed at Auk's brutality. "I should
imagine _so_, my daughter. I, for one, am disinclined to criticize you
for it."
"Only by-and-by I figured it out. See, Kypris had--you know,
what Scylla did. It was at Orpine's funeral. Orpine's a dell I used to
know." Transfering the launcher to her other hand, Chenille wiped
her eyes. "I still feel really bad about her. I always will."
"Your grief does you _credit_, my daughter."
"Now she's lying in a box in the ground, and I'm walking in this
one, only mine's a whole lot deeper. I wonder whether this is what
being dead seems like to her? Maybe it is."
"Her _spirit_ has doubtless united itself with the gods in Mainframe,"
Incus said kindly.
"Her spirit, sure, but what about her? What do you call this tunnel
stuff? They make houses out of it, sometimes.
"The ignorant say _shiprock_, the learned _navislapis_."
"A big shiprock box. That's what we're in, and we're just as
buried as Orpine. What I was going to say is Kypris never told Auk,
Patera. Not like Scylla. She told him right away, but he thought
Kypris was me, and he liked her a lot. He gave me this ring, see?
Then she talked to people in Limna and went in the manteion and
went away. Went clear out of me and left me all alone in front of the
Window. I was scared to death. I had some money and I kept buying
red ribbon--"
"Brandy, my daughter?"
"Yeah. Throwing it down, trying to pretend it was rust because it's
about the same color. It took a lot before I got over being scared,
and then I still was, a little, way back in my head and deep down in
my tripes. Then I saw Auk, this was still in Limna, so I hooked him
because I was out of gelt, and I was just some drunk, some old
drunk trull. So naturally he lumped me. He never did lump me as
hard as Bass did once, and I'm sorry I lumped you. Aren't the gods
supposed to care about us, Patera?"
"They _do_, my daughter."
"Well, Scylla didn't. She could've kept me out of the sun and kept
my clothes so I wouldn't get so burned. We got hot when I was
running for her and they got in our way, so she just tore them off
and threw them down. My best winter gown."
Incus cleared his throat. "I have been meaning to speak to you
about _that_, my daughter. Your _nudity_. Perhaps I ought to have
done so when I shrove you. I foresaw, however, that you might
misunderstand. I, _myself_, am sunburned, and nudity _is_ wrong,
you know."
"It gets bucks hot. Mine does, I mean, or Violet. I saw a buck
practically jump the wall once when Violet took off her gown, and
she wasn't really naked, either. She had on one of those real good
bandeaus that hike up your tits when they look like they're just
shoving them back."
"_Nudity_, my daughter," Incus continued gamely, "is wrong not
only because it engenders concupiscent thoughts in weak men, but because it
is _often_ the occasion of _violent_ attacks. Concupiscent thoughts
are wrong in themselves, as I suggested, though they are not _seriously_
evil. Violent _attacks_, on the other hand, _are_ seriously evil.
In the matter of concupiscent thoughts, the fault lies with you when by
_intentional_ nudity you give rise to them. In that of _violent
attacks_, the fault lies with the _attacker_. He is obliged to _restrain_
himself, no matter _how severe_ a provocation is offered him. But I
ask you to consider, my daughter, whether you wish _any_ human spirit to
be rejected by the immortal gods."
"Getting beat over the head the way they do," Chenille said
positively, "that's the part I'd really hate."
Incus nodded, gratified. "There is _that_, as well. You must consider
that the _men_ most inclined to these attacks are _by no means_ the most
noble of my sex. To the _contrary!_ You might actually be _killed_.
Women frequently _are_."
"I guess you're right, Patera."
"Oh, I _am_, my daughter. You may _rely_ upon it. In our present
company, your nudity does _little_ harm, I would say. _I_, at least, am
_proof_ against it. So is the soldier whose life I, by the grace and aid of
_Fairest Phaea_, contrived to save. The captain of our boat--"
"Dace."
"Yes, _Dace_. Dace is _also_ proof against it, or _nearly_ so, I would
imagine, by virtue of his advanced age. _Auk_, of whom I had
entertained the gravest fears for your sake has _now_, by the
intercession of _Divine Echidna_, who ever strives to safeguard the
chastity of your sex as well as _my own_, been so severely injured that
he is _most unlikely_ to attack you or--"
"Auk? He wouldn't have to."
Incus cleared his throat again. "I forbear to dispute the matter, my
daughter. Your reason or mine, though I _greatly_ prefer _my own_. But
consider this, _also_. We are to enter the _Juzgado_, using the tessera
the talus supplied. Once there--"
"Is that what we're supposed to do when we get back? I guess it is,
but I haven't been thinking about it, just about getting Auk to a
doctor and all that. I know a good one. And sitting down and getting
somebody nice to wash my feet, and some powder and rouge and
some decent perfume, and drinks and something to eat. Aren't you
hungry, Patera? I'm starving."
"I am not _wholly_ unaccustomed to fasting, my daughter. To
_revert_ to our topic, we are to enter the Juzgado, or so that _talus_
informed us as the claws of Hierax closed upon him. His
instructions were _Scylla's_, he said, and I credit him. He told us
the Ayuntamiento must be _destroyed_, as Scylla _herself_ did upon
that _unforgettable_ occasion when she announced that she has
chosen _me_ her Prolocutor. The _talus_ indicated that we were to
announce her decision to the commissioners, and provided a
_tessera_ by which we are to _penetrate_ the subcellar for that
purpose. I must confess _I_ had not known that such a subcellar
existed, but presumably it does. _Consider_ then, my daughter, that
you will soon--"
"Thetis, that was it, wasn't it? I wondered what he meant when he
said that. Does it work like a key? I've heard there are doors like
that."
"_Ancient_ doors," Incus informed her. "Doors constructed by _Great
Pas_ at the time he built the whorl. The _Prolocutor's Palace_ has such