by Gene Wolfe
A crude bludgeon, a stone lashed with sinew to a fire-blackened
bone, lay near one of the convicts Incus had shot. Auk picked it up
to look at, then tossed it away, wondering how close the man had
gotten to Incus before he fell. If Incus had been killed, he, Auk,
would have gotten his needler back. But what might Hammerstone
have done?
He examined more curiously the one he had cut down with his
hanger. He had stolen the hanger originally, had worn it largely for
show, had sharpened it once only because he used it now and then
to cut rope or prize open drawers, had taken two lessons from
Master Xiphias out of curiosity; now he felt that he possessed a
weapon he had never known was his.
The radiance of the creeping lights was noticeably dimmer here; it
would be some time before the section in which he had left the old
fisherman was well lit. He drew his hanger and advanced cautiously.
"You sing out if you see anything, bird."
"No see."
"But you can see in this, can't you? Shag, I can see, too. I just
can't see good."
"No men." Oreb snapped his bill and fluttered from Auk's right
shoulder to his left. "No things."
"Yeah, I don't see much either. I wish I could be sure this was the
spot."
Most of all, he wished that Chenille had come. Bustard was
walking beside him, big and brawny; but it was not the same. If
Chenille had not cared enough to come, there was no point going--no
point in anything.
How'd you get yourself into this, sprat, Bastard wanted to know.
"I dunno," Auk muttered. "I forget."
Give me the pure keg, sprat. You want me to window you out? If
I'm going to help, I got to know.
"Well, I liked him. Patera, I mean. Patera Silk. I think the
Ayuntamiento got him. I thought, well, I'll go out to the lake
tonight, meet 'em in Limna, and they'll be glad to see me for the
gelt, for a dimber dinner and drinks, and maybe a couple uphill
rooms for us after. He won't touch her, he's a augur--"
"Bad talk!"
"He's a augur, and she'll have a couple with her dinner and feel
like she owes me for it and the ring, owes for both, and it'll be nice."
What'd I tell you about hooking up with some dell, sprat?
"Yeah, sure, brother. Whatever you say. Only then he was gone
and she was fuddled, and I got hot and lumped her and went looking. Only
everybody say's he's going to be calde, the new calde--Patera. That
would be somebody to know, if he pulls it off."
"Girl come!"
Never mind that. So now you're going back here, back the way we
come, for this Silk butcher?
"Yeah, for Silk, because he'd want me to. And for him, too, for
Dace, the old man that owned our boat."
You've snaffled a sackful like him. You don't even have his
shaggy boat.
"Patera'd want me to, and I liked him."
This much?
"Hackum? Hackum!"
He's waitin', you know. That buck Gelada's waitin' for us in the
dark next to the old man's body, sprat. He had a bow. Didn't any of
em back there have no bow.
"Girl come," Oreb repeated.
Auk swung around to face her. "Stand clear, Jugs!"
"Hackum, there's something I've got to tell you, but I can't yell it."
"He can see us, Jugs. Only we can't see him. Not even the bird can
see him from here where it's brighter, looking into the dark.
Where's your launcher?"
"I had to leave it with Stony. Patera didn't want me to go. I think
he thought I might try to kill them with it once I got off a ways."
Auk glanced to his right, hoping to consult Bustard; but Bustard
had gone.
"So I said, we're not going to do anything like that. We don't hate
you. But he said you did."
Auk shook his head, the pain there a crimson haze. "He hates me,
maybe. I don't hate him."
"That's what I told him. He said very well my daughter--you
know how he talks--leave _that_ with us, and I shall believe you. So I
did. I gave it to Stony."
"And came after me without it to tell me about the shaggy doors."
"Yes!" She drew nearer as she spoke. "It's important, really
important, Hackum, and I don't want that cully that knocked me
down to hear it."
"Is it about what the tall ass said?"
Chenille halted, dumbfounded.
"I heard, Jugs. I was right there behind you, and doors are my
business. Doors and windows and walls and roofs. You think I'd
miss that?"
She shook her head. "I guess not."
"I guess not, too. Stay back where you'll be safe." He turned away,
hoping she had not seen how sick and dizzy he was; the darkening
tunnel seemed to spin as he stared into its black maw, a pinwheel
that had burned out, or the high rear wheel of a deadcoach, all
ebony and black iron, rolling down a tarred road to nowhere. "I
know you're in there, Gelada, and you got the old man with you.
You listen here. My name's Auk, and I'm a pal of Urus's. I'm not
here for a row. Only I'm a pal of the old man's, too."
His voice was trailing away. He tried to collect such strength as
remained. "What we're going to do pretty soon now, we're going to
go back to your pit with Urus."
"Hackum!"
"Shut up." He did not bother to look at her. "That's 'cause I can
get you through one of these iron doors down here that you can't
solve. I'm going to talk to 'em in your pit. I'm going to say anybody
that wants out, you come with me and I'll get you out. Then we'll go
to that door and I'll open it, and we'll go on out. Only that's it. I
ain't coming back for anybody."
He paused, waiting for some reply. Oreb's bill clacked nervously.
"You and the old man come here and you can come with us. Or let
him go and head back to the pit yourself, and you can come along
with the rest if you want to. But I'm going to look for him."
Chenille's hand touched his shoulder, and he started.
"You in this, Jugs?"
She nodded and put her arm through his. They had taken perhaps
a hundred more steps into the deepening darkness when an arrow
whizzed between their heads; she gasped and held him more tightly
than ever.
"That's just a warning," he told her. "He could have put it in us if
he'd wanted to. Only he won't, because we can get him out and he
can't get out himself."
He raised his voice as before. "The old man's finished, ain't he,
Gelada? I got you. And you think when I find out, it's all in the tub.
That's not how it'll be. Everything I said still goes. We got a augur
with us, the little cull you saw with Jugs here when you shot at her.
Just give us the old man's body. We'll get him to pray over it and
maybe bury it somewhere proper, if we can find a place. I never
knew you, but maybe you knew Bustard, my brother. Buck that
nabbed the gold Molpe Cup? You want us to fetch Urus? He'll cap
for me."
Chenille called, "He's telling the truth, Gelada, really he is. I
don't think you're here any more, I think you ra
n off down the
tunnel. That's what I'd have done. But if you are, you can trust
Auk. You must have been down in the pit a real long time, because
everybody in the Orilla knows Auk now."
"Bird see!" Oreb muttered.
Auk walked slowly into the deepening twilight of the tunnel. "He
got his bow?"
"Got bow!"
"Put it down, Gelada. You shoot me, you're shooting the last
chance you'll ever get."
"Auk?" The voice from the darkness might have been that of
Hierax himself, hollow and hopeless as the echo from a tomb. "That
your name? Auk?"
"That's me. Bustard's brother. He was older than me."
"You got a needler? Lay it down."
"I don't have one." Auk sheathed his hanger, pulled off his tunic,
and dropped it to the tunnel floor. With uplifted arms, he turned in
a complete circle. "See? I got the whin, and that's all I got." He drew
his hanger again and held it up. "I'm leaving it right here on my
gipon. You can see Jugs don't have anything either. She left her
launcher back there with the soldier." Slowly he advanced into the
darkness, his hands displayed.
There was a sudden glimmer a hundred paces up the tunnel. "I got
a darkee," Gelada called. "Burns bufe drippin's."
He puffed the flame again, and this time Auk could hear the soft
exhalation of his breath, "I should've figured," he muttered to
Chenille.
"We don't like to use 'um much." Gelada stood, a stick figure not
much taller than Incus. "Keep 'um shut up mostly. Wick 'bout
snuffed. Culls bring 'um down 'n leave 'um."
When Auk, walking swiftly through the dark, said nothing, he
repeated, "Burn drippin's when the oil's gone."
"I was thinking you'd make 'em out of bones," Auk said
conversationally. "Maybe twist the wicks out of hair." He was close now, near
enough to see Dace's shadowy body lying at Gelada's feet.
"We do that sometimes, too. Only hair's no good. We braid 'urn
out o' rags."
Auk halted beside the body. "Got him back there, didn't you? His
kicks are messed some."
"Dragged 'im far as I could. "E's a grunter."
Auk nodded absently. Silk had once told him, as the two had sat
at dinner in a private room in Viron, that Blood had a daughter, and
that Blood's daughter's face was like a skull, was like talking to a
skull though she was living and Bustard was dead (Bustard whose
face really was a skull now) was not like that. Her father's face,
Blood's flabby face, was not like that either, was soft and red and
sweating even when he was saying that this one or that one must
pay.
But this Gelada's too was a skull, as if he and not Blood were the
mort Mucor's father, was as beardless as any skull or nearly, the
grayish white of dirty bones even in the stinking yellow light of the
dark lantern--a talking cadaver with a little round belly, elbows
bigger than its arms, and shoulders like a towel horse, the dark
lantern in its hand and its small bow, like a child's bow, of bone
wound with rawhide, lying at its feet, with an arrow next to it, with
Dace's broad-bladed old knife next to that, and Dace's old head, the
old cap it always wore gone, his wild white hair like a crone's and
the clean white bones of his arm half-cleaned of flesh and whiter
than his old eyes, whiter than anything.
"You crank, Auk?"
"Yeah, a little." Auk crouched beside Dace's body.
"Had the shiv on 'im." Stooping swiftly, Gelada snatched it up.
"I'm keepin' it."
"Sure." The sleeve of Dace's heavy, worn blue tunic had been cut
away, and strips cut from his forearm and upper arm. Oreb hopped
from Auk's shoulder to scrutinize the work, and Auk warned him,
"Not your peck."
"Poor bird!"
"Had a couple bits, too. You can have 'um when you get me out."
"Keep 'em. You'll need 'em up there."
From the corner of his eye, Auk saw Chenille trace the sign of
addition. "High Hierax, Dark God, God of Death..."
"He show much fight?"
"Not much. Got behind 'im. Got my spare string 'round 'is neck.
There a art to that. You know Mandrill?"
"Lit out," Auk told him without looking up. "Palustria's what I
heard."
"My cousin. Used to work with 'im. How 'bout Elodia?"
"She's dead. You, too." Auk straightened up and drove his knife
into the rounded belly, the point entering below the ribs and
reaching upward for the heart.
Gelada's eyes and mouth opened wide. Briefly, he sought to
grasp Auk's wrist, to push away the blade that had already ended his
life. His dark lantern fell clattering to the naked shiprock with
Dace's old knife, and darkness rushed upon them.
"Hackum!"
Auk felt Gelada's weight come onto the knife as Gelada's legs
went limp. He jerked it free and wiped the blade and his right hand
on his thigh, glad that he did not have to look at Gelada's blood at
that moment, or meet a dead man's empty, staring eyes.
"Hackum, you said you wouldn't hurt him!"
"Did I? I don't remember."
"He wasn't going to do anything to us."
She had not touched him, but he sensed the nearness of her, the
female smell of her loins and the musk of her hair. "He'd already
done it, Jugs." He returned his knife to his boot, located Dace's
body with groping fingers, and slung it across his shoulders. It felt
no heavier than a boy's. "You want to bring that darkee? Could be
good if we can figure away to light it."
Chenille said nothing, but in a few seconds he heard the tinny
rattle of the lantern.
"He killed Dace. That'd be enough by itself, only he ate him
some, too. That's why he didn't talk at first. Too busy chewing. He
knew we'd want the old man's body, and he wanted to fill up."
"He was starving. Starving down here." Chenille's voice was
barely above a whisper.
"Sure. Bird, you still around?"
"Bird here!" Feathers brushed Auk's fingers; Oreb was riding atop
Dace's corpse.
"If you were starving, you might have done the same thing,
Hackum."
Auk did not reply, and she added, "Me, too, I guess."
"It don't signify, Jugs." He was walking faster, striding along
ahead of her.
"I don't see why not!"
"Because I had to. He'd have done it too, like I said. We're going
to the pit. I told him so."
"I don't like that, either." Chenille sounded as though she were
about to weep.
"I got to. I got too many friends that's been sent there, Jugs. If
some's in this pit and I can get 'em out, I got to do it. And
everybody in the pit's going to find out. Maybe Patera wouldn't tell
'em, if I asked nice. Maybe Hammerstone wouldn't. Only Urus
would for sure. He'd say this cull, he did for a pal of Auk's and ate
him, too, and Auk never done a thing. When I got 'em out, it'd be
all over the city."
A god laughed behind them, faintly but distinctly, the meaningless,
humorless laughter of a lunatic; Auk wondered whether
/> Chenille had heard it. "So I had to. And I did it. You would've too,
in my shoes."
The tunnel was growing lighter already. Ahead, where it was
brighter still, he could see Incus, Hammerstone, and Urus still
seated on the tunnel floor, Hammerstone with Chenille's launcher
across his steel lap, Incus telling his beads, Urus staring back up the
tunnel toward them.
"All right, Hackum."
Here were his hanger and his tunic. He laid down Dace's corpse,
sheathed the hanger, and put on his tunic again.
"Man good!" Oreb's beak snapped with appreciation.
"You been eating off him? I told you about that."
"Other man," Oreb explained. "My eyes."
Auk shrugged. "Why not?"
"Let's get out of here. Please, Hackum." Chenille was already
several steps ahead.
He nodded and picked up Dace.
"I've got this bad feeling. Like he's still alive back there or
something."
"He ain't." Auk reassured her.
As they reached the three who had waited, Incus pocketed his
beads. "I would gladly have brought the _Pardon of Par_ to our late
comrade. But his spirit has _flown_."
"Sure," Auk said. "We were just hoping you'd bury him, Patera, if
we can find a place."
"It's _Patera_ now?"
"And before. I was saying Patera before. You just didn't notice,
Patera."
"Oh, but I _did_, my son." Incus motioned for Hammerstone and
Urus to rise. "I would do what I _can_ for our unfortunate comrade in
any case. Not for your sake, my son, but for _his_."
Auk nodded. "That's all we're asking, Patera. Gelada's dead.
Maybe I ought to tell everybody."
Incus was eyeing Dace's body. "You cannot bear such a weight
_far_, my son. Hammerstone will have to carry him, I suppose."
"No," Auk said, his voice suddenly hard. "Urus will. Come're,
Urus. Take it."
Chapter 4 -- The Plan of Pas
"I'm sorry you did that, Mucor," Silk said mildly.
The old woman shook her head. "I wasn't going to kill you. But I
could've."
"Of course you could."
Quetzal had picked up the needler; he brushed it with his fingers,
then produced a handkerchief with which to wipe off the white bull's
blood. The old woman turned to watch him, her eyes widening as
her death's-head grin faded.
"I'm sorry, my daughter," Silk repeated. "I've noticed you at
sacrifice now and then, but I don't recall your name."